A few months ago I went in search of books that could potentially be included in my summer series, the Art Lovers Books Club, at the Winter Garden Art Association.  I asked people who attended my events and I requested recommendations on social media.  Thankfully, I received a ton of suggestions and Donna Tartt’s The Goldfinch was one of them.  While I decided not to include it in this year’s Art Lovers Book Club, I do highly recommend that it be read, especially by those who appreciate art.

As always, I don’t want to give too much away as I personally prefer to read a book (or watch a film, for that matter) with as little information as possible.  With that said, Tartt tells the epic Dickensian tale of an ordinary boy who lives through extraordinary events, who is forever tied to a small Dutch Baroque painting, “The Goldfinch,” by Carel Fabritius.  The circumstances surrounding the boy’s acquisition of the painting haunt him for his entire life and the mere idea of it being in his possession completely redefines his life’s trajectory.  In a sense, this novel helps to express the profound effect a single piece of art can have on a person and the surprising ways it can influence one’s life choices.

There is an amazing passage near the end of the book that is really quite profound…

And as much as I’d like to believe there’s a truth beyond illusion, I’ve come to believe that there’s no truth beyond illusion.  Because, between “reality” on the one hand, and the point where the mind strikes reality, there’s a middle zone, a rainbow edge where beauty comes into being, where two very different surfaces mingle and blur to provide what life does not: and this is the space where all art exists, and all magic.