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Beyond Measure
The artistic world of mid-16th Century Italy comes to life through the eyes of a piebald slave stolen from her home and family in Africa.
Chiara, as she is eventually named, is sold to Paolo Pallavicino, an artist in service of Giuliano de Medici. When several unfortunate incidents occur, the artist's wife believes her to be a curse and demands that she be sent away. From this starting point, Chiara works her way from painter to painter, observing the games the artists play on each other and the rivalries that fuel their artistic creations.
300 pages, Paperback
First published June 1, 2003
2 people are currently reading
110 people want to read
About the author
Pauline Holdstock
27 books15 followersPauline Holdstock is a Canadian citizen who has lived in Canada for over thirty years. She writes novels, short fiction and essays. Her books have been published in the U.K, the U.S., Brazil, Portugal, Australia and Germany, as well as in Canada, where CBC’s 'The Arts Tonight' has featured her work.
Pauline’s short fiction has appeared in numerous literary magazines.
The Hunter And The Wild Girl, Winner of the City of Victoria Butler Book Prize Prize, is her most recent novel.
Her novel, Beyond Measure, was a finalist for the 2004 Giller Prize and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, Canada and Caribbean Region. It won the BC Book Prizes Ethel Wilson Award for Fiction in 2005.
A recent novella, The World of Light Where We Live, was the winner of the Malahat Review 2006 Novella Contest.
Pauline Holdstock also writes non-fiction. Her essays and book reviews have appeared in Canada’s national newspapers and have been broadcast on CBC radio. She was the winner of the Prairie Fire Personal Journalism Prize, 2000.
Pauline has taught at the Victoria School of Writing and at the University of Victoria. She has served on the faculty of the Banff Centre Wired Writing Studio, and the Banff Centre’s Writing with Style program.
Pauline’s short fiction has appeared in numerous literary magazines.
The Hunter And The Wild Girl, Winner of the City of Victoria Butler Book Prize Prize, is her most recent novel.
Her novel, Beyond Measure, was a finalist for the 2004 Giller Prize and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize, Canada and Caribbean Region. It won the BC Book Prizes Ethel Wilson Award for Fiction in 2005.
A recent novella, The World of Light Where We Live, was the winner of the Malahat Review 2006 Novella Contest.
Pauline Holdstock also writes non-fiction. Her essays and book reviews have appeared in Canada’s national newspapers and have been broadcast on CBC radio. She was the winner of the Prairie Fire Personal Journalism Prize, 2000.
Pauline has taught at the Victoria School of Writing and at the University of Victoria. She has served on the faculty of the Banff Centre Wired Writing Studio, and the Banff Centre’s Writing with Style program.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
May 12, 2015
Pauline Holdstock's novel, Beyond Measure, takes place in Italy in the 1500s, and spirals around the main characters Paolo, Orazio, his daughter and assistant Sofonisba, Ceccio the land lord, Matteo Tassi, Alessandro and Caterina, the slave girl. Each character has a desire to be appreciated, if not seen.
Paolo, an artist, treats human subjects like objects; he searches for the inanimate flesh to make it come alive once again in his art. He cannot see beyond his own flesh and, therefore, has a compulsive need to capture the beauty of the human form in his paintings. He is calculating, methodical and manipulative in the way he obtains these objects. Paolo attempts to move past the emotional element of his subjects to get to the purpose of his art, as illustrated in the following passage:
"...The skin of a hanged man is as the skin of any other. It is its own miracle, a paragon of suppleness and strength and exquisite sensitivity and, when hairless and smooth as in youth and in the female form, a thing of beauty beyond compare."
When Caterina, the slave girl, is presented to Paolo, he becomes obsessed with the living quality of her female form and her strange markings. Caterina is an unwitting gift or pawn, passed around between the characters for the benefit of monetary, artistic and personal status. Paolo insists on painting her in the nude, as he says "a muse clothed is against Nature. The muse must be naked. She is naked truth. The naked flame of inspiration."
The novel examines the existing classes, and relationships between master and slave. The need each character has to interact with the other characters, in their varying positions, is modeled on hierarchy, obedience, responsibility and human value. Paolo reserves the right to manipulate human beings to dissect and exploit them, for the sake of art. Still, for his livelihood and art, he must answer to his landlord, Ceccio.
The circling relationships between the characters are interconnected and dependent, with different agendas revolving around their individual needs for the slave girl, Caterina. She will win them esteem, power, love, or artistic pursuit. Art and people are for bartering, and a means of ownership. Nothing is sacred in terms of art or human life, as each are subject to revisions.
Art is the central theme, and the characters are tied to it either physically or intrinsically. Holdstock's writing is thorough and painstakingly descriptive. She leaves out no detail of the work involved. For instance:
"Carefully he sticks pins into the anima and, in a process of trial and error, positions it securely in the mould, closing the two halves round it. The protruding pins keep it away from the inner walls; it hangs inside, clear of the shell of the mould, trapped and at the same time free, the way, Maestro Paolo once remarked, the rough unfinished soul hangs inside the body, a disparate element, longing for fire. So the artist's work, said Maestro Paolo, was the mirror of God's creation, Man."
The language used is clinical and instructive, and yet poetic and transcendent. Beyond Measure is, essentially, a commentary on art: how one's work is viewed by outsiders, other artists and critics, and the lengths that artists will go to come close to divinity. As well, the sacrifices people will make to achieve their desires.
Paolo, an artist, treats human subjects like objects; he searches for the inanimate flesh to make it come alive once again in his art. He cannot see beyond his own flesh and, therefore, has a compulsive need to capture the beauty of the human form in his paintings. He is calculating, methodical and manipulative in the way he obtains these objects. Paolo attempts to move past the emotional element of his subjects to get to the purpose of his art, as illustrated in the following passage:
"...The skin of a hanged man is as the skin of any other. It is its own miracle, a paragon of suppleness and strength and exquisite sensitivity and, when hairless and smooth as in youth and in the female form, a thing of beauty beyond compare."
When Caterina, the slave girl, is presented to Paolo, he becomes obsessed with the living quality of her female form and her strange markings. Caterina is an unwitting gift or pawn, passed around between the characters for the benefit of monetary, artistic and personal status. Paolo insists on painting her in the nude, as he says "a muse clothed is against Nature. The muse must be naked. She is naked truth. The naked flame of inspiration."
The novel examines the existing classes, and relationships between master and slave. The need each character has to interact with the other characters, in their varying positions, is modeled on hierarchy, obedience, responsibility and human value. Paolo reserves the right to manipulate human beings to dissect and exploit them, for the sake of art. Still, for his livelihood and art, he must answer to his landlord, Ceccio.
The circling relationships between the characters are interconnected and dependent, with different agendas revolving around their individual needs for the slave girl, Caterina. She will win them esteem, power, love, or artistic pursuit. Art and people are for bartering, and a means of ownership. Nothing is sacred in terms of art or human life, as each are subject to revisions.
Art is the central theme, and the characters are tied to it either physically or intrinsically. Holdstock's writing is thorough and painstakingly descriptive. She leaves out no detail of the work involved. For instance:
"Carefully he sticks pins into the anima and, in a process of trial and error, positions it securely in the mould, closing the two halves round it. The protruding pins keep it away from the inner walls; it hangs inside, clear of the shell of the mould, trapped and at the same time free, the way, Maestro Paolo once remarked, the rough unfinished soul hangs inside the body, a disparate element, longing for fire. So the artist's work, said Maestro Paolo, was the mirror of God's creation, Man."
The language used is clinical and instructive, and yet poetic and transcendent. Beyond Measure is, essentially, a commentary on art: how one's work is viewed by outsiders, other artists and critics, and the lengths that artists will go to come close to divinity. As well, the sacrifices people will make to achieve their desires.
June 21, 2019
Partly inspired by a real artist, this is an intriguing look at what life may have been like for a female painter in 16th Century Italy, where art intersects with science and superstition. The line between the beauty of art and ugliness of science/superstition becomes a blurred (and sometimes shocking) one, and the language flows from the poetic to the visceral. The description of setting is a work of art in itself. Perhaps because I read this slowly while reading other material, at times I lost sight of connections between the plot's interwoven elements, including the vivid opening chapter on which the story unfolds. Against the theme of fortune (from the slave to the artists who use her), desires and ambitions cross paths, with startling and life-altering results.
September 2, 2011
This author has to be one of the most imaginative, descriptive authors there is. Characters are developed in exquisite detail, and parts of the plot stretch the limits of society's norms to the point of shock. The theme of the search for perfection, beauty and knowledge is developed throughout the book, and in the end one questions whether the end justifies the means. I think this is a book that will stay with me for awhile.
January 13, 2008
QUOTE: “The air is balmy and sweet and all along the road the traveller is assaulted by new fragrances the warm breeze has stirred. At least those are the words of his song, though here in Via del Rosaio the fragrance is an underlying blend of boiled cabbage and shit beneath the stink of the tanneries that wafts up from the river.” [p. 98]
September 1, 2014
a slave in 16th century Italy. This book was absolutely fascinating for the period it was set in; the characters were painters and sculptors with incredible talent and a piebald slave who did as she was told... A great read.
May 26, 2015
Enjoyed the setting and time line plus the descriptive narrative but something was missing. I'm not sure what it was.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews