In the full light of the sun

Clare Clark

Book - 2019

"Based on a true story, this gorgeous new novel follows the fortunes of three Berliners caught up in an art scandal--involving newly discovered van Goghs--that rocks Germany amidst the Nazis' rise to power. Hedonistic and politically turbulent, Berlin in the 1920s is a city of seedy night clubs and sumptuous art galleries. It is home to millionaires and mobs storming bakeries for rationed bread. These disparate Berlins collide when Emmeline,a young art student; Julius, an art expert; and a mysterious dealer named Rachmann all find themselves caught up in the astonishing discovery of thirty-two previously unknown paintings by Vincent van Gogh. In the Full Light of the Sun explores the trio's complex relationships and motivatio...ns, their hopes, their vanities, and their self-delusions--for the paintings are fakes and they are in their own ways complicit. Theirs is a cautionary tale about of the aspirations of the new Germany and a generation determined to put the humiliations of the past behind them. With her signature impeccable and evocative historical detail, Clare Clark has written a gripping novel about beauty and justice, and the truth that may be found when our most treasured beliefs are revealed as illusions"--

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Subjects
Genres
Historical fiction
Novels
Published
Boston : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2019.
Language
English
Main Author
Clare Clark (author)
Edition
First U.S. edition
Physical Description
424 pages ; 24 cm
ISBN
9780544147577
Contents unavailable.
Review by New York Times Review

WHAT MADE "THE STARRY NIGHT" A STAR? What elevated Vincent van Gogh from an unknown to a phenomenon? The ready answer is genius, but unlaureled genius is axiomatic. In Clare Clark's terrific new novel, "In the Full Light of the Sun," the story of van Gogh's posthumous rise to fame bursts from history like a spurt of the artist's beloved chrome yellow from a tube of paint. Set not in Paris or Provence but in Weimar Germany, where the cult of Vincent surges to a level resembling tulip mania and both seedy bars and high-end art galleries are "infested with cretinous fascists," the novel explores how the extraordinary can become ensnared and finally entombed in the web of a rabid public reception. As Clark puts it in her author's note, "the idea of a tormented hero unjustly spurned struck a powerful chord" in post-World War I Germany. Which makes sense, since the ground had been well prepared by the country's sense of victimization after its defeat and the seemingly intractable economic crisis. The van Gogh mania continues today - posters of impasto sunflowers still adorn college dorm rooms. Prolific and uncataloged as van Gogh was, questions of authenticity have inevitably haunted his body of work. Clark bases her plot on a notorious forgery case that held Germany in thrall during the 1920s and '30s, when 33 canvases of questionable provenance hit the art market. Several real-life characters provide inspiration for those peopling the novel, chief among them the art critic Julius MeierGraefe (here named Julius KöhlerSchultz), who stuffed his thoroughly enjoyable if pulpy best-selling biography of the artist with breathless encomiums like this: "His eyes bit into every object, into trees and soil, like an ax. ... He painted till he made the stone talk." Two other characters join Julius at the center of Clark's story, a dancer-turned-art dealer named Matthias Rachmann and Emmeline Eberhardt, a rebellious spirit and aspiring artist who, when we first meet her, holds her pencil poised midair above a sketchbook until, "with a howl of vexation," she hurls it to the floor, curls up in her chair and instantly falls asleep. A blank wall in his study torments Julius, a lone nail protruding where his wife absconded with his cherished van Gogh self-portrait. He longs to see "the feathered curl of Vincent's unkempt beard, the green line down the length of his nose, the blue smudge of shadow under his eyes that matched exactly the frenzy of overlapping brush strokes around his head." "In the Full Light of the Sun" - the title phrase is praise for van Gogh's work by his erstwhile roommate in Arles, Paul Gauguin - follows the missing painting as possibly the one true canvas among the dozens whose veracity has come under question. Mysterious Matthias establishes his gallery through trafficking in suspected fakes. Emmeline attends the premier art school in Berlin, one of the few women to do so, yet flounders when it comes to developing a style of her own, instead directing her passion to a female journalist who lives in her building. Emmeline, Matthias and Julius spend a memorably intense, sexually charged evening together, and their paths cross throughout the book in an atmosphere of longing and deceit. Julius lectures Matthias: "To write about art you must speak as art speaks, passionately and directly to the soul." Might Clark be speaking to herself here? Until an overly complex last section, she manages the trick well enough, rendering the atmospheric setting precisely and the psychology of her characters with deftness, strength and subtlety. She artfully balances her twin subjects: a painter's meteoric life and the fiery trail of controversy left behind by a shooting star. JEAN ZIMMERMAN'S most recent novel is "Savage Girl."

Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [August 23, 2019]
Review by Booklist Review

Berlin in the 1920s is a fascinating and volatile place as inflation runs amok, making paupers and millionaires in the space of a day. From rarified galleries to squalid tenements, it is a city of extremes. Clark explores these circumstances by focusing on three self-absorbed characters: pretentious art aficionado Julius Kohler-Schultz, rebellious art student Emmeline Eberhardt, and enigmatic art dealer Matthias Rachmann. Köhler-Schultz is in the throes of a bitter divorce, and his prized possession, a van Gogh, is being held hostage by his estranged wife. Meeting Rachmann results in a marriage of the minds, which intensifies when Rachmann discovers a cache of van Goghs that Köhler-Schultz authenticates. All is not what it seems, and an intricate web of deception (of self and others) results. Clark, repeatedly longlisted for the Orange Prize, is confident in all her constructions here, from narrative voice (three of them) to characterization and from historical atmosphere to the conceptualization of art, illusion, and truth. In this intriguing tale based on real-life events, Clark has conjured a resonant zeitgeist.--Bethany Latham Copyright 2010 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Clark (We That Are Left) dives into the lives of three Germans involved in a Van Gogh forgery scandal in this enjoyable tale. Each of the characters is involved in aiding and abetting Matthias Rachmann, a charming but inscrutable art dealer whose impressive collection of van Gogh works has given him given him financial security and prestige amid the hyperinflation and turmoil of Weimar-era Berlin. As art experts and reporters begin to question the veracity of Rachmann's paintings, the motives of his friends and acquaintances also come under scrutiny. One of Rachmann's most powerful supporters is Julius, an aging art expert whose knack for identifying forgeries gives him unparalleled sway in the Berlin art scene. Julius's young charge, Emmeline, is a graduate of the Berlin Academy of Art-her considerable artistic talent and personal volatility lend themselves well to Rachmann's schemes. And Frank, Rachmann's Jewish lawyer, ties the scheme together as his professional and personal life are increasingly threatened by the rise of Nazism. Based on a real-life forgery scandal, the novel is infused with Clark's signature attention to historical detail. While van Gogh's paintings and the question of artistic veracity provide a nice narrative framework, the core of the story is the bonds and delusions that form between Julius, Emmeline, and Frank. Evocative prose and excellent pacing make this fine historical a must-read for art history buffs. (July) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review

In Berlin between the world wars, a trove of rediscovered works by Vincent van Gogh propels a story of passion and betrayal in the art world.Clark (We That Are Left, 2015, etc.) situates this historical novel in a decade marked by economic, political, and cultural turmoil in Germany. The story is told in three sections. The first, set in 1923, focuses on Julius Khler-Schultz, author of an acclaimed biography of van Gogh and "Germany's pre-eminent art critic, composed, cultured and authoritative, a man garlanded with the privileges of lifelong success." That life has been upended by the departure of his wife, Luisa, a hedonistic young woman half his age. She has taken with her their baby son and Julius' most treasured painting, a van Gogh self-portrait. He misses the painting more. Julius meets Emmeline Eberhardt, an even more rebellious, even younger woman, an artist who will be first his protg and then something more problematic. She is the main character in the book's second section, set in 1927, as she explores her sexuality in Berlin's demimonde. The lives of Julius and Emmeline become intertwined with that of a charming and mysterious young man. Matthias Rachmann, an aspiring art dealer, might be a true lover of art driven by aesthetic passionor he might be an exceptionally intelligent grifter working a very long con. The book's third section, set in 1933, consists of diary entries by Frank Berszacki, who was Rachmann's attorney after he was charged with art forgery. Berszacki is Jewish, and he adds yet another layer to Matthias' story while describing his own struggles with the rising tide of Nazism in Berlin. Clark's mastery of historic and artistic details merges with skillful plotting and compelling characters in this accomplished novel.A suspenseful, atmospheric portrait of Berlin during Hitler's rise. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.