I thought of a few questions (couldn't find any study guides on line) to consider in preparation for our discussion.
What books have you read, or do you know, which have “art” as a theme, but are not “art books”?
What did you learn about art and painters from Sacré Bleu: A Comedy d'Art? When/How did you first learn about these artists? Were any of them new to you? Have you seen their artwork? What were your feelings about the art?
What did you think about the Science Fiction aspect of the novel? What did you think about the sequence of events? Could you follow it? Would you move anything around? What science fiction aspects have some basis in reality? What do you think about the idea of having “sacred blue” or a "muse"?
What did you learn (or remember, if you have been there) about Paris?
First we caught folks up on the story line. Was it really a suicide? Or was Vincent Van Gogh murdered? Ultimately, the artists and/or their women (wives, lovers, and models) are dying, and that moves the investigation further into the realm of muses, cave art, and creation of a sacred blue color formed from something other than lapis lazuli. HIS WEBSITE is amazing: http://guide.sacrebleu.info/2012/04/03/guide-to-the-chapter-guide/
The story was really clever – an amazing amount of research pulled together into an historical story line that evolves into science fiction.
Beautiful, evocative, prose:
“A conscience soaked in wine”
He “wasn’t a scoundrel, but scoundrels envied his laugh”
What did we learn about art and painters from Sacré Bleu: A Comedy d'Art? When/How did we first learn about these artists? Were any of them new to us? Have we seen their artwork? What were our feelings about the art?
• The best “sacred blue” is made from lapis lazuli – unless it’s made the way the book describes.
• Sacred blue was used for Mary’s robe, it was red before that – This was interesting and new to us. Christopher Moore did so much research!
• Artists would paint several paintings at the same time of the same place because, after an hour, the lighting changed and it was a different painting. – This seems obvious, but we had never considered it before, and it totally makes sense.
• Most of us knew the painters, but not the women in their lives.
What did we think about the Science Fiction aspect of the novel? What did we think about the sequence of events? Could we follow it? Would we move anything around? What do we think about the idea of having “sacred blue” or a "muse"?
• Many of us felt that the story line and sequence worked well because it kept us interested and didn’t give anything away too early.
What books have we read, or do we know, which have “art” as a theme, but are not “art books”?
• The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown
• Girl with the Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier
• “Life Studies” series biographical fiction about artists
What did you learn (or remember, if you have been there) about Paris?
• Sacré Coeur http://www.sacre-coeur-montmartre.com/ - the place for artists. Learned this while in Pairs, but was too young to know that’s what it was known for!
Who is represented/mentioned in the book? Below are quick summaries from Wikipedia:
Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa or simply Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec; was a French painter, printmaker, draughtsman and illustrator
Born: November 24, 1864, Albi
Died: September 9, 1901, Gironde
Vincent Willem van Gogh was a Dutch post-Impressionist painter whose work, notable for its rough beauty, emotional honesty and bold color, had a far-reaching influence on 20th-century art.
Born: March 30, 1853, Zundert
Died: July 29, 1890, Auvers-sur-Oise
Theodorus "Theo" van Gogh was a Dutch art dealer. He was the younger brother of Vincent van Gogh, and Theo's unfailing financial and emotional support allowed his brother to devote himself entirely to painting.
Born: May 1, 1857, Zundert
Died: January 25, 1891, Utrecht
Claude Monet was a founder of French impressionist painting, and the most consistent and prolific practitioner of the movement's philosophy of expressing one's perceptions before nature, especially as applied to plein-air landscape painting.
Born: November 14, 1840, Paris
Died: December 5, 1926, Giverny
Paul Cézanne was a French artist and Post-Impressionist painter whose work laid the foundations of the transition from the 19th-century conception of artistic endeavour to a new and radically different world of art in the 20th century.
Born: January 19, 1839, Aix-en-Provence
Died: October 22, 1906, Aix-en-Provence
Édouard Manet was a French painter. One of the first 19th-century artists to approach modern and postmodern-life subjects, he was a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism.
Born: January 23, 1832, Paris
Died: April 20, 1883, Paris
Eugène Henri Paul Gauguin was a leading French Post-Impressionist artist who was not well appreciated until after his death.
Born: June 7, 1848, Paris
Died: May 8, 1903, Atuona
Georges Pierre Seurat was a French Post-Impressionist painter and draftsman. He is noted for his innovative use of drawing media and for devising the technique of painting known as pointillism.
Born: December 2, 1859, Paris
Died: March 29, 1891, Paris
Pierre-Auguste Renoir was a French artist who was a leading painter in the development of the Impressionist style.
Born: February 25, 1841, Limoges
Died: December 3, 1919, Cagnes-sur-Mer
Camille Pissarro 10 July 1830 – 13 November 1903 was a Danish-French Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist painter born on the island of St Thomas. His importance resides in his contributions to both Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camille_Pissarro
Born: July 10, 1830, Charlotte Amalie
Died: November 13, 1903, Paris
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa or simply Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec; was a French painter, printmaker, draughtsman and illustrator whose immersion in the colourful and theatrical life of ...
Born: November 24, 1864, Albi
Died: September 9, 1901, Gironde
Edgar Degas, was a French artist famous for his work in painting, sculpture, printmaking and drawing. He is regarded as one of the founders of Impressionism although he rejected the term, and preferred to be called a realist.
Born: July 19, 1834, Paris
Died: September 27, 1917, Paris
Saying the following website is phenomenal is an understatement. It has great chapter-by-chapter visuals of paintings and scenery from the book. I cannot recommend it enough. It also has photographs of the artists with the models and paintings; explanations of how the “blue” is made; photographs from the Paris scenes (the Catacombs!); photographs of ancient cave art, related drawings and paintings of that time period; and the passages from the book. It also has Christopher Moore’s reflections on research and writing, while touring Paris and the museums where the painting are shown. “Oh well. At some point you have to stop researching and write, and at that point, you’re going to get some stuff wrong.“ It is so interesting to see and read that I couldn’t stop once I started, even the “comments” were interesting. http://guide.sacrebleu.info/2012/04/03/guide-to-the-chapter-guide/
And here is a video of Christopher Moore discussing the book: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YOqJ7OKSg_s
Summary (for a longer summary and great interview with the author http://www.amazon.com/Sacre-Bleu-Comedy-dArt-P-S/dp/006177975X)
Absolutely nothing is sacred to Christopher Moore. The phenomenally popular, New York Times bestselling satirist whom the Atlanta Journal-Constitution calls, "Stephen King with a whoopee cushion and a double-espresso imagination" has already lampooned Shakespeare, San Francisco vampires, marine biologists, Death… even Jesus Christ and Santa Claus! Now, in his latest masterpiece, Sacré Bleu, the immortal Moore takes on the Great French Masters. A magnificent "Comedy d'Art" from the author of Lamb, Fool, and Bite Me, Moore's Sacré Bleu is part mystery, part history (sort of), part love story, and wholly hilarious as it follows a young baker-painter as he joins the dapper Henri Toulouse-Lautrec on a quest to unravel the mystery behind the supposed "suicide" of Vincent van Gogh.
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