The Shadow of an Artist
The Shadow of an Artist portrays the life of French modernist painter Édouard Manet, told from the perspective of his friend, Julian Mercier. The ruse of the novel is that Mercier’s great-grandson takes possession of a trunk containing Mercier’s draft novel and Manet’s diary, and is able to produce this book.
The novel follows Manet as he rejects a traditional career and chooses to embed himself in the world of art. He soon develops a distinctive style as a painter of modern life, often choosing lower-class people as his models. As readers, we’re there when Manet chooses his models, gets embroiled in disagreements, creates his most famous works, and experiences rejection from the Paris Salon. Towards the end of the book, we’re with Manet when he is finally accepted by the art establishment but descends into ill health. Along the way, we meet many well-known artists and writers, including Picasso, Zola, Monet, and Baudelaire.
Manet is a promising protagonist for a historical novel, but The Shadow of an Artist would benefit from more attention to writing craft. The book is a series of disparate scenes and historical references, rather than a cohesive story. While it’s told from the perspective of Julian Mercier, he remains a background figure who is not developed as a character with agency. The book offers a broad overview of events between 1848 and 1883, but in providing this breadth it sacrifices both depth and detail. The extensive dialogue is wooden in places. I was bothered by shifts in point of view and some slips at the sentence level.
