Fine Art for Dummies

I loved it! I loved it! I loved it! I had read Kostova’s earlier novel “The Historian” a while back and quite enjoyed it. When I saw that my local book store had a copy of her new book I immediately had to put it on hold at my local library. In the end, I preferred this book to her previous one. This novel begins with a man trying to attack a painting in a museum. He is arrested and soon found to be mentally unstable and is handed over to the care of a psychiatrist. He refused to speak and so his shrink must interview his family and friends to find the source of his compulsion and destructive imbalance. Alongside his story is the turbulent history of the painting he attempted to destroy and the artists from its era. All the characters in this novel are painters and so it felt like I was having a mini art lesson. From the biography on the back of the book I learned that the author has a Masters in Fine Art. I love art and wish I knew more about its technique, composition, and history and so this book was a delight to read.