Title: Henry James and the lust of the eyes
Description: Henry James's only lust in life was a metaphoric one, what he himself referred to as "the lust of the eyes." Indeed, the intensely visual nature of James's imagination cannot fail to strike anyone who reads his fiction. His work is replete with references to paintings, sculpture, and architecture, which are often used to illustrate or echo themes in his writing. Adeline R. Tintner, one of the world's leading authorities on Henry James, presented a broad overview of James's stimulation by the visual arts in a previous book, The Museum World of Henry James. In her fascinating new book, Henry James and the Lust of the Eyes: Thirteen Artists in His Work, Tintner focuses on a select group of artists and considers how the vision of each permeates a single tale or novel.

She shows that James frequently perceived the idea or emotion evoked by an artist's creation as an analogue of a character or situation in his fiction, and she analyzes the various means by which he incorporated - sometimes directly, sometimes obliquely - the artist's work in his own work. As Tintner makes clear, James's use of works of art in his writing both reflects his own aesthetic sophistication and demonstrates his almost infinite capacity for variety and irony. Tintner begins her study with the 1883 story "the Siege of London," showing how in that tale James alludes to Thomas Couture's painting The Romans of the Decadence not only through a covert reference to the painting's title but also through the story's action and images.

She goes on to consider the influence of the work of French sculptors Jean Goujon and Germain Pilon on the short novel The Reverberator; the use of William Hogarth's engravings in "A London Life"; the inspiration James drew from the painter Jean-Leon Gerome in writing The Tragic Muse; and the use of a painting supposedly by the Venetian Giovanni Bellini in "The Chaperon." Other artists whose influence on James's work she discusses are Lord Frederick Leighton, Hans Holbein the Younger, Bronzino, Pinturicchio, Honore Daumier, Pietro Longhi, and Jan Vermeer. Henry James and the Lust of the Eyes affords valuable insights into James's genius. By closely examining his appropriation of specific works of art, Tintner opens a window onto James's own perceptions - what he saw of the cultural world around him, and how he interpreted it. The complex variety of his responses to artists and their work displays the remarkable acuity of James's visual sense and the fecundity of his imagination.
Subjects: Art, Art and literature, Knowledge, James, henry, 1843-1916, Knowledge and learning
People: Henry James (1843-1916)