Portraits at an Exhibition: A Novel, by Patrick E. Horrigan
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Portraits at an Exhibition: A Novel, by Patrick E. Horrigan
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An alienated young man searches for his life's purpose through a gallery of portraits at an exhibition. Afraid he may have contracted HIV the night before during a risky sexual encounter and only beginning to fathom the possible consequences, Robin winds his way through the rooms, studying the portraits of people from faraway places and times, looking for clues in the lives of others to the mystery of his own discontent. Several masterpieces of portrait painting, reproduced in the novel, become the focal-points of Robin's physical and spiritual journey; ranging from the Renaissance to the turn of the 21st century, they include works by such famous artists as Sandro Botticelli, Diego Velazquez, and John Singer Sargent. Each portrait opens like a time capsule to Robin's gaze, releasing stories about the sitters, artists, and critics who, over the centuries, have turned their everyday struggles, disappointments, and dreams into transcendent works of art. Portraits at an Exhibition plunges the reader directly into the mind of Robin, seeing as he sees, reading what he reads, and learning, along with him, the often unsettling life lessons that only the closest observation of great art can teach.
Portraits at an Exhibition: A Novel, by Patrick E. Horrigan- Amazon Sales Rank: #1358338 in Books
- Published on: 2015-05-25
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 9.02" h x .53" w x 5.98" l, .76 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 232 pages
Review ''Patrick Horrigan's Portraits at an Exhibition explores the power of portraiture to transport us into distant worlds of imagination and desire. The celebrated paintings featured in the book are far from static images to be dissected and tamed by art historical analysis. Instead, they function as shimmering mirrors and portals, leading Horrigan's characters and readers into deeply felt journeys of the mind, senses, and spirit. Like the Renaissance painters whose works the novel so acutely reproduces, Horrigan's subjects are men and women who struggle to shape their own destinies even as they confront the vagaries of chance, the haunting shadows of loss and doubt, and the relentless pull of their own desires.'' --Mario DiGangi, Mario DiGangi, Professor of English and Lesbian/Gay Studies at Lehman College and the Graduate Center, CUNY''A masterful debut novel that calls into question the barriers between artist, subject and admirer. Portraits at an Exhibition is one of those rare novels that both makes the reader think and feel simultaneously, a vibrant and intellectually challenging exploration of love, family, illness, loss and art, told through five of the world's most celebrated paintings.'' --Jacob M. Appel, author of The Man Who Wouldn't Stand Up''Horrigan's protagonist reminds readers that the menace of AIDS has never truly left gay life. Yet, this is not a story of sorrow but of finding hope through appreciating art, a sovereign remedy our community has always relied on, be it John Singer Sargent or Keith Haring. A recommended read for us all.'' --Jameson Currier, author of Where the Rainbow Ends and A Gathering Storm
About the Author An English professor at LIU Brooklyn, Horrigan has won the David Newton Award for Excellence in Teaching. This is his debut novel.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Character Study By Jean Roberta The structure of this novel appears at first to have too many frames in every sense. The third-person narrative centered on a gay-male art lover named Robin is interspersed with descriptions of the portraits in a New York art gallery that Robin studies as a means of understanding his own life as well as distracting himself from it. Other characters, including a female security guard and a psychologist who may or may not be the man who could save Robin from his demons, enter the gallery and star in their own streams of consciousness.The impression of a chorus of voices, or an exhibition of portraits (literal and figurative) resolves itself into a clear pattern after the first few pages. Once the reader has adjusted to the quick changes of tone, the effect is rich and poignant. Here Robin reads a sign that introduces the exhibition of oil portraits:“Today, portraiture is ubiquitous: people stare out at us from newspapers, magazines, and websites; movies and TV shows contain countless ‘close-ups’; our own faces adorn ID cards, passports, driver’s licenses, and online networking sites; snapshots fill our wallets and photo albums; pictures and family and friends cover our walls at home and our desks at work” [passage in bold in the novel].Robin is reminded of his own collection of photographs:“He had finally put away the picture of Brian after weeks of pretending it wasn’t really over. Now there was just the one of Stephen [Robin’s deceased twin] and himself when they were seven years old, dressed for Halloween as Batman and Robin (he always came second—‘Little Squirt’ Stephen used to call him), and the photo of the two of them, arm in arm, on the day of their high school graduation.”Robin continues reading:“The camera’s ability to produce an accurate mirror reflection of whatever it sees in the world is perhaps the most vital legacy of the Renaissance portrait.”The real-life circumstances behind each portrait are explained on signs, but Robin, who dropped out of a Ph.D. program in art history, is already well-aware that art comes from life. While studying Portrait of a Boy by John Singer Sargent, Robin notices that the boy’s mother is painted behind him, fading into the darkness of the background. She holds a book about the War of 1812, from which she reads aloud to hold the boy’s attention. To Robin, the woman looks like a servant, while the beautiful boy in the foreground shows the unconscious arrogance of privileged youth. Robin reads:“In April 1890, Saint-Gaudens [the boy’s father] expressed a desire to sculpt a portrait of Sargent’s twenty-year-old sister Violet, in exchange for one by Sargent of Saint-Gaudens’ ten-year-old son, Homer.”Robin considers the status of the two women and the boy as items of exchange between two successful male artists. As a university student, he studied the work of trendy theorists on the politics of inequality, but his sensitivity to the feelings of those who are treated as less-than (“squirts”) can be traced back to his own boyhood.The contrast between physical and spiritual beauty, and Robin’s awareness of his own esthetic snobbery, are threads that run through his consciousness. As a man in his thirties, he has moved uncomfortably beyond youth, but he hasn’t yet reached middle age; he is looking for love as well as sex while he is still able to attract attention. Like so many others, Robin is afraid he might never find everything he wants in one Significant Other. He is haunted by a fear of failure on several levels.The reader is taken on a tour through the gallery as Robin studies Portrait of a Young Man by Sandro Botticelli, Self-Portrait in Fur Cloak by Albrecht Durer, a portrait by Velasquez of his Moorish apprentice and former slave, Juan de Pareja, and Portrait of an Old Man by Hans Memling. Robin’s loneliness, his self-doubt, his hopes and desires are mirrored in the stunningly lifelike portraits of various men from the late 1400s. Few of Robin’s questions are answered by the end of the novel – and his most urgent question is whether he has contracted AIDS, that modern equivalent of a terrifyingly infectious, incurable disease from a past century. Luckily for the reader, his encounters with the living and the dead serve to counteract his tendency to be self-absorbed.What this novel lacks in speed it makes up for in depth. Patrick Horrigan’s study of the human condition in our time shows the continuing influence of Renaissance humanism. Polymaths of the fifteenth century, such as Leonardo da Vinci and Pico della Mirandola, would probably feel at home in Robin’s world.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. A book of incredible scope that seamlessly weaves back and ... By Julie c. OBrien A book of incredible scope that seamlessly weaves back and forth in perspective and between narrators of multiple time periods. It sensitively recreates the experience of being in an art museum following the mind as it blurs art with personal experience and voyeurism. I found it to be a unique and pleasurable read.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Wonderful worlds within worlds By Amy Pratt I thought this book was wonderful, and have enjoyed it even more as I mull it over. It was such a pleasure to roam in the world of Horrigan's thought – to read a book that is unapologetic about ideas and to engage with a text that is so challenging to read well. I particularly loved the first chapter, which establishes the book's many-layered structure, inviting readers to step inside the painted portraits as well as wonder at them. Horrigan weaves together various formal and plot threads to raise a set of abstract questions about the art of portraiture. But he also introduces engaging characters in a story which asks what we are doing, emotionally, when we make, or look at, portraits. We wonder, with surprising suspense, whether the narrative's protagonist will, through his museum wanderings, learn enough about himself and his own desire to remake himself in the face of grief and loss. This short book is full of much richness.
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