PAINTING TIME

Three art students at a European college form a bond as they learn the unique, demanding details of their profession.

A novel it may be, but French author de Kerangal’s sensuous, language–relishing, richly evocative new work is less about plot, more an aesthetic appreciation and exploration of one branch of the figurative arts, namely trompe-l’œil painting, “the art of illusion.” The discipline is about detail, texture, and effect and demands exhausting devotion to minutiae, as French student Paula Karst learned at the Institut de Peinture in Brussels in 2008 while also making two firm friendships, one with her flatmate, Jonas, the other with statuesque Kate who bears “a vague resemblance to Anita Ekberg.” As the novel opens, these three are reunited at a bar in Paris, Paula having flown in from a film-set job in Moscow where she's painting Anna Karenina’s sitting room. All-nighters and a rootless existence are the characteristics of their freelance work, which also often means accepting commissions from the one percent. Kate’s current job, for example, is painting a complicated marble effect on a wealthy client’s walls. All three have “learned to glaze, to score, to soften, to stipple, to moiré, to lighten, to create a little iridescence with a polecat-hair round brush,” and it’s this wealth of terms, tones, and applications that fascinate the author. Paula’s career is followed most closely; much of it is spent in Italy, where a transformative leap occurs with her decision to work at Cinecittà film studios. Later, at Lascaux, where Paula is painting a facsimile of the world-revered cave art, the narrative cements the relationship among the work, history, and time.

A curiosity as introspective, finely wrought, and devotedly crafted as the art form it traces.