Blurring the lines between art and fiction

A renowned Italian painter of his era from Florence (c. 1421– 1457), Andrea del Castagno was influenced largely by Giotto di Bondone and Tommaso Masaccio. But there is something more to his life than his artistic trajectory. An artist-biographer of the Italian Renaissance, Giorgio Vasari, alleged that the painter took the life of another artist Domenico Veneziano, though many felt that the presumption was unlikely.

But just the fact that Vasari relates the story of these two 15th-century artists who took their so-called artistic rivalry to the probability of murder made it all quite dramatic, though it was not necessarily the case, as the supposed killer happened to predecease his victim. However, this compelling murder mystery in itself revealed quite a lot about the palpable obsessive rivalries of the Renaissance period. So it remained artistically and realistically true.

An interesting essay, titled ‘The art of illusion’ by writer Jonathan Jones reveals how artists tend to inhabit the borders between fiction and fact. As a result, both their works and lives have invariably inspired writers like Vasari and Dan Brown. Jones, who writes on art themes for the Guardian newspaper and also a jury for the 2009 Turner prize, takes a cue from Oscar Wilde's book ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ and points out it triggered him to mull over the phenomenon of art inspiring so many good stories.

In Wilde's novel, a painter creates a young man’s portrait, who he is in love with. All his unspoken passion goes into the work that somehow makes it more than a mere passive artwork. It takes on mysterious properties. When young Dorian wants the portrait to decay while he is preserved in his pristine beauty, he indeed gets his wish.

The tale essentially belongs to a class of art fictions – stories about artworks. Other examples of this genre include ‘The Oval Portrait’ by Edgar Allan Poe and ‘The Unknown Masterpiece’ by Balzac. If writers can narrate such tales about artworks and forms of art, imagine what they perhaps can do with the milieu and lives of artists of different eras. A case in point is ‘The Masterpiece’ by Emile Zola, a dark portrait of the French 19th century avant-garde, and ‘La Carte et le Territoire’ by Michel Houellebecq. It satirizes the contemporary art world.