Middle Grade Gallery: Liar, Spy, and Seurat

Georges, the liar (or is he the spy?) of Rebecca Stead's Liar & Spy (Wendy Lamb, 2012), is named after the French artist Georges Seurat ("Here's a piece of advice you will probably never use: If you want to name your son after Georges Seurat, you could call him George, without the S. Just to make his life easier"). The first thing Georges's dad does when his family has to sell their house in Brooklyn and move to an apartment a couple of blocks away (still in Brooklyn; this is a very Brooklyn sort of book, actually) is hang a poster of Seurat's A Sunday on the Grand Jatte on the wall above the couch in the living room. Here's Georges's description of it:

Two summers ago we went to Chicago, where the real painting takes up one entire wall of the Art Institute. What you can't tell from the poster is that the picture is painted entirely with dots. Tiny little dots. Close up, they just look like blobs of paint. But if you stand back, you see that they make this whole nice park scene, with people walking around in old-fashioned clothes. There's even a monkey on a leash. Mom says that our Seurat poster reminds her to look at the big picture. Like when it hurts to think about selling the house, she tells herself how that bad feeling is just one dot in the giant Seurat painting of our lives. (11)

His mom's pointillism analogy informs Georges's (and his dad's) attitude towards the bad feelings--brought on by the move, his mom's absence, bullying at school--that come up in the first half of Liar and Spy, but eventually (on page 90 of 180--the exact midpoint the book) Georges comes to a realization of his own:

And then I think of all those thousands of dots Seurat used to paint the picture. I think about how if you stand back from the painting, you can see the people, the green grass and that cute monkey on a leash, but if you get closer, the monkey kind of dissolves right in front of your eyes, Like Mom says, life is a million different dots making one gigantic picture. And maybe the big picture is nice, maybe it's amazing, but if you're standing with your face pressed up against a bunch of black dots, it's really hard to tell. (90)

These two passages mirror each other: standing back, getting closer. In the second half of the book, Stead continues to explore the tension between the big picture and the dots or details, between what we see and what we think we see and what is really there; and the Seurat painting serves as a reference point for Georges and for the reader, as well as a source of inspiration in the final scenes (although Seurat didn't use a blue Sharpie). It's a masterful piece of work, for all that it's so understated. I'm still not sure I loved it, certainly not as much as Stead's Newbery Award-winning When You Reach Me (Wendy Lamb, 2009), but the more I read and think about it, the richer it reveals itself it be.

Princess Academy of Art

Anticipating the August release of Princess Academy: Palace of Stone by Shannon Hale (Bloomsbury, 2012), I recently read the first Princess Academy, a 2006 Newbery Honor book. I wonder why I hadn't read it before, because it's just the sort of book I like, and probably would have loved as a ten-year-old girl: it has a classic feel and an ordinary-girl heroine in Miri Larendaughter, it's set in a village on a snowy mountaintop--beautifully evoked throughout the book as well as on the original cover, shown here--and there's a boarding school. Where you have to study to be a princess. After learning to read (no one in Mount Eskel knew how before the princess academy), the girls study Danlander History, Commerce, Geography, and Kings and Queens. And then there are the "princess-forming" subjects: Diplomacy (which proves useful on more than occasion), Conversation, and Poise. I want to go to princess academy!

I also want to add Princess Academy to the Middle Grade Gallery (where I think about how paintings work in fiction), even though Art isn't one of the subjects the girls have to study. But one winter morning, their tutor Olana shows the girls a painting; like the silver princess dress they've already seen, it's meant to make them work harder at their studies, to remind them of their goal:

Olana removed the cloth and held up a colorful painting much more detailed than the chapel's carved doors. It illustrated a house with a carved wooden door, six glass windows facing front, and a garden of tall trees and bushes bursting with red and yellow flowers.
"This house stands in Asland, the capital, not a long carriage ride from the palace...It will be given to the family of the girl chosen as princess." [87]

And the painting does its job: Miri, for one, spends hours imagining her family inside the house and garden, so different from their mountain home.

At the end of the book, Olana reveals the truth about the painting, and gives it to Miri. Spoiler alert (after seven years, I don't think I'm spoiling anything, but just in case): the house never existed. And Miri doesn't marry the prince (although she is academy princess). It's not until Palace of Stone that she goes to the capital at all. I wonder if she will remember the painting when she gets there?

Middle Grade Gallery 11

The main character in this recently-released middle grade fantasy novel is obsessed with art history.  In addition to memorizing art historical facts, she likes to imitate (in the privacy of her bedroom, of course) Venus in Front of the Mirror, as seen in Peter Paul Rubens's famous painting of the Goddess of Love looking pleasingly plump (c. 1613/1614; Liechtenstein Museum, Vienna).  It helps that she's got the plump part going for her, too--even if it's not always pleasing outside of a Rubens painting anymore.

This book merits a special exhibition in the Middle Grade Gallery, there are so many references to major artists--from Watteau to Degas to Picasso, and lots more--as well as to specific works in it.  It's also absolutely delightful.  Review forthcoming, I promise.

In the meantime, there's a clue to the title of the book in this very painting: it's Cupid, otherwise known as (ahem) the small person with wings holding the mirror.  For the reverse angle, compare Titian's Venus with a Mirror (c. 1555; NGA).  Which do you prefer?

Middle Grade Gallery 10

The Middle Grade Gallery is back with a three-part question about this compelling portrait, now owned by the Metropolitan Museum of Art:

Here is a written description of the portrait sitting, from a Newbery Medal-winning middle grade novel:

Master said I was to wear my everday clothes, only he gave me a large white collar with deep points, lace-edged (one of his own), to set off the somber darkness of my dress and my dusky complexion.

He placed me before him, told me to look directly at him, and to clasp my cloak so that it should fall over at my left shoulder.

And of the finished portrait, from the same source:

There I stood, looking at myself, as if in a mirror.  All apart from the likeness, which was startling (Master had no peer at that), the composition was harmonious and impressive in typical Spanish fashion, and yet there was an unusual glow of golden light around my head and on my skin, and an inner content which I can scarcely describe,  It was as if Master had painted what you see on the outside, and also, just as clearly, what was there in the inside...the thoughts inside my head.

This portrait also plays an important role in a 2011 ALA Award-winning picture book (I'm not saying which award, or which book, obviously!).  Can you name

  • the artist and subject of this portrait,
  • the title and author of the Newbery Medal winner quoted, and
  • the title and author of this year's relevant ALA Award winner?

Bonus points for the adjective that best describes the expression on his face.  You don't even have to answer the other questions!

Middle Grade Gallery 9

This week in the Middle Grade Gallery, an illuminated manuscript, or rather a page from one, that holds the key to a mystery--and a curse:

[William] looked back at the page and tried to make out the details in the three small drawings at the foot of the page.  They were enclosed by a border of crows amongst twirling branches and leaves.

The first picture showed a hill with trees growing on the top, and in the foreground a white-robed figure with feathered wings.  There was what appeared to be the shaft of an arrow sticking out of its chest.  A chill went through William as it dawned on him what he was looking at.

[Me again.]  The passage goes on to describe the second and third pictures as well.  Try as I might I couldn't find a medieval image of a "white-robed figure with feathered wings" (angels were much more colorful back then).  William's angel probably would have looked more like this one, from Bede's Life of Cuthbert (England, N., last quarter of the 12th century), blue-robed and rainbow-winged.  I think this manuscript is a good fit in terms of period and setting for the book in question, a lovely new middle grade novel set in a mythical, medieval world.

[The illuminations hold the key to the title of this book, too!]

Middle Grade Gallery 8

This week in the Middle Grade Gallery, a painting that functions as a birth token, a small object kept as an identifying record of an abandoned or orphaned infant.  During the evacuation of children from Edinbugh in the early days of WWII, shy, wealthy Marjorie, on her way to relatives in Canada, trades places with the orphaned Shona and is evacuated to the Scottish countryside (from the LoC summary).  Marjorie discovers the painting in Shona's suitcase:

Taking up the whole bottom of the case was a painting in a wooden frame.  Marjorie was puzzled that Shona, who had so few possessions, would bring a painting along with her.  She lifted it out of the suitcase and carried it over directly under the light so she could see it better.  It showed a Victorian house, rather ornate and turreted, standing in the middle of an overgrown garden.  The windows were blank and empty and, in the forground, iron gates hung open, bent and rusted.  The big stone gateposts leaned at drunken angles and a decorative stone ball had fallen from the top of one.  It lay among the weeds, chipped and shadowed so that it looked like a skull.

[Me again.]  The description is from a childhood favorite (note the British orphans, practically a prerequisite).  After years of searching, I recently located a secondhand copy and upon rereading, was as surprised by the painting as Marjorie was; I had forgotten all about it until she opened the suitcase.  The image accompanying this post, a painting of a ruined Victorian house, Lansdown, Bath 1942, is by British war artist John Piper, who had been commissioned to record bomb damage in and around London at that time.

Does any of this sound familiar--plot, painting, Piper?  Even if you don't recognize this middle grade novel, please leave a comment if you can recommend any others having to do with the evacuation.  I'll reveal, review, and round up the recommendations next week.  Thanks!

[Revealed here.]

Middle Grade Gallery 7

This week in the Middle Grade Gallery, a portrait of a queen from a fairly recent fantasy novel (the third in a series of five, so far) that borrows from our familiarity with another, English queen: 

It is a skillful painting of a Castle Queen, from times long past.  He can tell that it is old because she is wearing the true crown, the one that was lost many centuries ago.  The queen has a sharp pointy nose and wears her hair coiled around her ears like a pair of earmuffs.  Clinging to her skirts is an Aie-Aie--a horrible little creature with a ratty face, sharp claws and a long snake's tail.  Its round, red eyes stare out at Silas as though it would like to bite him with its one long, needle-sharp tooth.  The Queen too looks out from the painting, but she wears a lofty, disapproving expression.  Her head is held high, supported by a starched ruff under her chin and her piercing eyes are reflected in the light of Silas's candle and seem to follow them everywhere.

[Me again.]  Does this passage remind you of Elizabeth I, too?  I looked at a lot of portraits of Elizabeth before settling on one to illustrate this post:  the Ermine Portrait, attributed to William Segar (formerly, to Nicholas Hilliard), 1585; and on display at Hatfield House, one of Elizabeth's childhood residences.  The "lofty, disapproving expression," along with other details of the queen's appearance described in the passage, is common to most of Elizabeth's portraits, but the Ermine is as close as they come to an Aie-Aie.

[Hint:  The Queen in the novel is named Etheldredda.  Please leave a comment if you recognized her, too.]

Middle Grade Gallery 6

This week in the Middle Grade Gallery, one of a fictional series of four miniatures, as it might have been drawn by Albrecht Dürer. The drawing is first copied, then stolen (and later, recovered) from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in this middle grade novel, one of my favorites of 2009.

The drawing was a tiny framed miniature of a gowned woman kneeling, with her arms around an animal. A lion. She had waves of hair that cascaded down her back, and the lion's mane flowed in similar waves over its massive shoulders.

The drawing above obviously isn't a lion; it's Dürer's Stag Beetle, 1505 (Getty), and it's also a big hint.  Have you figured it out yet?

Middle Grade Gallery 5

This week in the Middle Grade Gallery, a real painting, not a fictional one.  Actually, it's a reprint of a real painting, but close enough.  It's quite throughly described here:

"I'm going to hang old Elizabeth Bas by the fireplace," said Dean.  "'Engraving from a portrait by Rembrandt.' Isn't she a delightful old woman, Star, in her white cap and tremendous white ruff collar?  And did you ever see such a shrewd, humorous, complacent, slightly contemptuous old face?"

"I don't think I should want to have an argument with Elizabeth," reflected [xxx].  "One feels that she is keeping her halds folded under compulsion and might box your ears if you disagreed with her."

"She has been dust for over a century," said Dean dreamily.  "Yet here she is living on this cheap reprint of Rembrandt's canvas.  You are expecting her to speak to you.  And I feel, as you do, that she wouldn't put up with any nonsense."

"But likely she has a sweetmeat stored away in some pocket of her gown for you.  That fine, rosy, wholesome old woman.  She ruled the family--not a doubt of it.  Her husband did as she told him--but never knew it."

"Had she a husband?" said Dean doubtfully.  "There's no wedding-ring on her finger."

"Then she must have been a most delightful old maid," averred [xxx].

[Me again.]  I couldn't resist quoting this passage at length; Dean and "Star" have so thoroughly imagined old Elisabeth Bas.  The image above is of the original painting, now believed to be by Ferdinand Bol (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam).

Based on this portrait, do you think her personality is as they have described it?  Would you hang this portrait (or any portrait) at your house?  If you know who did (and in what novel, not necessarily middle grade but that's when I first read it), please leave a comment.  And thanks for visiting the Middle Grade Gallery!  I appreciate your patronage.

Middle Grade Gallery III

This week in the Middle Grade Gallery, a painting (one of several) from a brand-new novel I absolutely adore and can't wait to review.  In the tradition of paintings like the one of the Narnian ship at sea, it's a portal to another, mysterious place. 

It was a painting of a forest at night.  The twigs of leafless trees made a black web against the sky.  A full moon pressed its face through the clouds, touching a path of white stones that led into the dark woods and disappeared.  But it seemed to [her] that somewhere, maybe just at the end of that white path, maybe in the darkness where the moonlight couldn't reach--there was something else within that painting.  Something she could almost see.

[Me again.]  Okay, so there are no trees in Andrew Wyeth's Snow Flurries, 1953 (NGA).  There is the suggestion of a white path, though, and of something else....

I'll reveal (and review) the source of this description next week.  In the meantime, please comment if you can recall any other portal paintings in middle grade novels, so I can add them to my collection.  Thanks!

[The review is here.]

Middle Grade Gallery II

This week in the Middle Grade Gallery, a work of art which might be more familiar than the portrait of Oldknow children we looked at last week, and maybe even instantly recognizable.  As you read, try to imagine what this work of art looks like (I'm not a visual thinker, so I have to remind myself to do this):

It was a picture of a ship--a ship sailing nearly straight towards you.  Her prow was gilded and shaped like the head of a dragon with wide open mouth.  She had only one mast and one large, square sail which was a rich purple.  the sides of the ship--what you could see of them where the gilded wings of the dragon ended--were green.  She had just run up to the top of one glorious blue wave, and the nearer slope of that wave came down towards you, with streaks and bubbles on it.  She was obviously running fast before a gay wind, listing over a little on her port side.  All the sunlight fell on her from that side, and the water on that side was full of greens and purples.  On the other, it was darker blue from the shadow of the ship.

[Me again.]  It doesn't look anything like Fitz Henry Lane's Lumber Schooners at Evening on Penobscot Bay, 1853 (NGA), does it?  In many ways the two paintings are exactly opposite, yet I think they share the same magical quality (hint).  If you can identify the source, please be sure to leave a comment so I don't lose faith in my readership.

[See this post for the answer.]