Painter to the King

by Amy Sackville

This is a portrait of Diego Velazquez, from his arrival at the court of King Philip IV of Spain, to his death 38 years and scores of paintings later. It is a portrait of a relationship that is not quite a friendship, between an artist and his subject. It is a portrait of a ruler, always on duty, and increasingly burdened by a life of public expectation and repeated private grief. And it is a portrait of a court collapsing under the weight of its own excess.

Unfolding through series of masterly set-pieces and glancing sketches, this is a novel of brilliance, imagination and sheer style -- about what is shown and what is seen, about art and life.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Art, Spain, Historical, Novels, Book Club

336 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2018

About the author

Amy Sackville was born in 1981. She studied English and Theatre Studies at Leeds, and went on to an MPhil in English at Exeter College, Oxford, where she specialised in Modernism. After two years working for an illustrated books publisher, she chose to focus on writing fiction and in 2008, she completed the MA in Creative & Life Writing at Goldsmiths. She has had short stories published in anthologies from Fish Publishing and Leaf Books, and reviews and articles in various publications including The James Joyce Quarterly and The Oxonian Review of Books. She lives in West London. The Still Point is her first novel.

Reviews

[Hugh · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have been looking forward to reading more Amy Sackville ever since enjoying her first two novels The Still Point and Orkney shortly after joining GoodReads in 2014. All three of her novels are very different, and this is the first that largely sticks to historical fact. I found this recreation of the life of Velázquez and parallel history of the court of Philip IV of Spain very impressive.

The style is interesting - plenty of partial sentences broken up with dashes and ellipses, which combine to give much of this a stream of consciousness element, though the story is told chronologically. Sackville also allows herself occasional interjections that describe her own reactions to the paintings and places in the story, and a little speculation about how she would like to be able to change parts of it. The text is occasionally broken up by details from the paintings, and each of the three main sections is concluded by a complete picture - all in black and white perhaps due to budget restrictions, but it is easy enough to look up the pictures online.

Her ability to inhabit the mind of Velázquez through the paintings is very impressive, and the book is full of sumptuous visual descriptions. Inevitably, when dealing with events at such a distance, nuances of character are difficult to discern, but for me as a non-expert, the history made the whole thing very interesting.

This is a book which deserves a wider readership, and in my view it was unlucky to miss out on last year's prize lists. I will be leading a discussion of it in the 21st Century Literature group starting tomorrow.

[Blair · Rating 3 out of 5]

If I could break my ratings down into subcategories, Painter to the King would get 4, maybe 5, for the writing, and 2, maybe 1, for the story. This is a historical novel, a version of the life of the 17th-century artist Diego Velázquez: court painter to King Felipe IV of Spain, and famed creator of Las Meninas. Everything here is based on truth, but embellished, dramatised, fleshed out, reimagined.

From the prologue onwards, Amy Sackville had me hooked with the beautiful, unconventional, stopping-and-starting literary style she uses to tell this story. My first impression was that Painter to the King reminded me of Ali Smith's How to be both and Eley Williams' Attrib. and other stories. There are a lot of unfinished sentences, mimicking the process of thought, of an author's hesitant choices when embroidering the lives of historical figures. Every so often, Sackville slips into what is presumably her own perspective, describing her attempts to find traces of Velázquez in modern Madrid on a too-hot July day. (I loved these bits, and I'd have liked more of them.) There are other brilliant stylistic choices, like when Felipe marries his second wife, the teenaged Mariana, and her voice is that of a 21st-century brat (Spanish fashion is so weird. Why can't we copy the French like everyone else does?) – an amusing, clever touch that brought to mind Sofia Coppola’s Marie Antoinette. Scenes that depict celebration – and there are several of these throughout the book – are wonderfully chaotic, vivid, alive with joyful confusion.

But, considering that this is a long, involved, descriptive story that tells us a lot about the people it depicts, the characters have surprisingly little emotional depth. I never felt I cared about anyone. I couldn't summon much interest in the plot, either, as far as there is a plot (this being a retelling of real events, the dramatic potential is obviously limited): the overcomplicated politics of the royal court, the endless succession of births and deaths and marriages, none of this is interesting subject matter to me, and despite what the title may imply, this novel really is more about the king than the painter.

It sounds harsh to say this is a case of more style than substance, especially when the scope of Sackville’s research into her subject and immersion in the time period is so clear. I think it was that way for me, particularly, because of my indifference to the plot; those with an interest in the history of the Spanish monarchy will no doubt approach it differently. (I can't help but wonder if it might have been better to market it as creative non-fiction?) I wish I could have enjoyed Painter to the King more. While I loved the way it was written, I simply didn’t connect with the story at all.

I received an advance review copy of Painter to the King from the publisher through NetGalley.

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[Ends of the Word · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every so often, a novel comes along that challenges one’s expectations of the genre. Amy Sackville’s Painter to the King is one such work. It is, ostensibly, a fictional biography of Diego Velázquez, covering in particular the decades he spent in the service of King Philip IV of Spain and the relationship which developed between the artist and the monarch who was his royal/loyal patron. Sackville is surprisingly faithful to the ‘facts’, even down to what may seem trivial historical details. Yet, her novel is by no means a straightforward retelling of the life of Velázquez. For a start, she adopts a sort of stream of consciousness narration – which is often breathless and febrile, on occasion seemingly tentative or improvisatory. It feels as if we have stepped into a painting which is taking shape or as if we’re standing behind the painter, watching as he sketches at his easel. This impression is strengthened by the very ‘visual’ descriptions, full of colour and movement and the play of light and dark. Indeed, the chapters often have the atmosphere of a tableau, a scene ready to be set down for posterity.

At intervals, the third person approach is interrupted by the narrator intruding with her own ruminations. One should always be wary of identifying the author with the novel’s subject, but it is difficult not to see Sackville herself in the thirty-something narrator embarking on a literary pilgrimage on the steps of Velázquez. It is an inspired touch gives the novel a personal meaning and reveals it as a labour of love. At the same time, however, it can be taken as a warning that, despite all endeavours at authenticity, it is difficult, if not impossible, to recreate the past and particularly the thoughts and feelings of historical figures. This novel is, indeed, biographical and historical but is equally a very contemporary ‘imagining’ of the past.

And this brings us to the heart of what is, ultimately, a highly philosophical novel. I felt Painter to the King to be an exploration of the correlation between art and artifice, truth and reality, public personas and private feelings. The characters the novel are constantly preoccupied as to what will survive after their death – the King’s obsession with having his portraits painting is a way of ensuring his memory remains. But even though Diego is notorious for his devastating honesty and his inability to “lie” in his portraits, can we be sure that the King we know is not shaped by the painter’s imagination, just as Diego and his monarch speak to us through Sackville’s prose?

I found this to be a challenging novel, one which I read over a number of weeks alongside less demanding fare. But it is an impressive achievement and I would be surprised and disappointed if this is not – deservedly – recognised when the time for literary awards arrives.

Read more at https://endsoftheword.blogspot.com/20...

[Eric Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my highlights of visiting Madrid for the first time was being able to go to the Museo del Prado and see Diego Velázquez’s masterpiece Las Meninas in person. This is a painting I’d studied in art history at university and appreciated for its technique, but there’s something so arresting about seeing it in person with its odd composition and the confrontational stares from several figures depicted. So I was enticed to read Amy Sackville’s most recent novel because it portrays the life of Velázquez in his appointment to the royal court of King Philip IV of Spain. I wasn’t prepared for what a unique take the author gives on the historical novel which doesn’t simply tell the story the painter, the king and people associated with his court, but Sackville inserts her own voice and invites the reader to participate as well. It’s somewhat reminiscent of Patricia Duncker’s “Sophie and the Sybil” which depicts George Eliot’s tangled relationships as well as Duncker’s own feelings towards Eliot. In “Painter to the King” we’re led through Velázquez’s major paintings and shown the scenes and social milieu they sprung out of. But we’re also drawn to focus on certain aspects of the paintings (as pictorial details are reproduced throughout the text) and paintings which have been lost but which we know about through historical references. Sackville queries the gaps in history and the way the figures involved wanted their images and time period to be remembered. It forms such an original take on the past which invites the reader to participate in looking at its many layers as well as enjoying the experience of it in the story.

Read my full review of Painter to the King by Amy Sackville on LonesomeReader

[Tamara Agha-Jaffar · Rating 3 out of 5]

Painter to the King by Amy Sackville offers a historical panorama of the court of King Philip IV of Spain by focusing on the artist Diego Velázquez and his portraits of Philip and his family.

The novel unfolds through a unique combination of different styles. Dashes and ellipses abound; as do partial sentences; sentences that start and stop and start up, again—all of which constitute a stream of consciousness technique. The technique also replicates the painter’s brush strokes as his hand moves across the canvas, hesitates, and continues.

The nearly four-decade relationship between Velázquez and Philip is told chronologically with intermittent interruptions in which the narrator inserts herself as she walks through the dusty streets of Madrid and Seville, retracing Velázquez’s footsteps and frequenting his former haunts. She dips in and out of Velázquez’s mind, stands behind him as he paints, evokes his struggle to capture the right amount of light and shade in an image, speaks to him directly, and invites him to answer questions about his life and his art. She occasionally walks readers through a painting, directing our eyes to certain details as if seeing them from inside the canvas.

Sackville’s attention to detail is immersive and atmospheric. She plunges the reader into chaotic scenes depicting the frenzied activities and celebrations in Philip’s court. Her impressive use of visual imagery conjures a scene or a painting before our eyes. Her sentences pile on the details and can extend for several lines, giving the text an almost breathless quality. The style is remarkable; the historical research extensive.

In terms of style, this is a remarkable work. However, it may be too much of a good thing. The novel is weighed down by an excess of style and too little substance. The dashes, ellipses, stops and starts, shifts in perspective, the chaotic atmosphere, lengthy sentences, and the breathless quality, while effective in generating an atmosphere, can be quite exhausting and tedious to read. The fragmentary style leaves little room for character development. Neither the king nor Velázquez emerge as fully fleshed-out characters that engage reader attention.

Perhaps Sackville was aiming for something different. Perhaps her intention was to translate Velázquez’s breathtaking portraits into words that emulate his pauses and deliberations during composition; the sweep of his brush strokes; his play with light and dark; his manner of suspending gestures; his attention to detail; his intense scrutiny; and his angle of vision—all of which characterize his masterpieces. If that were her intention, then she has succeeded admirably.

Recommended.

My book reviews are also available at www.tamaraaghajaffar.com

[Roman Clodia · Rating 3 out of 5]

'Here you almost are'

An unusual novel that attempts to articulate a man, an artist and his works in words. Framed through a narrator imaginatively entering into a painting, this is a paradoxically impressionistic work, given that Velazquez's own works were more concerned with the physical materialism of court, world and personality.

Looking obliquely at the courtly world of seventeenth century Spain, the rituals, the patronage, the incessant concern with creating the right image of power, monarchy and authority, this foregrounds the historicised struggle of an artist to be viewed as a poet of paint, rather than mere artisan.

Oddly propulsive, moving from ecphrasis to fragments of life, this is a postmodern attempt to capture visual art in words.

Thanks to Granta for an ARC via NetGalley.

[LindaJ^ · Rating 4 out of 5]

Diego Velazquez was the Painter to the King of Spain, Felipe, i.e., Philip IV. In this book, Sackville looks at the reign of the Planet King through the eyes of the painter Felipe, as a new King at age 19, chose to be his court painter. Velazquez held that position, and others, until he died after 35 years of service to the King. In conjunction with that, she imagines how Velazquez felt at points over the span of his service to the King.

She does it in a pretty unique way. Sometimes she uses the paintings (mostly portraits) that Velazquez painted, including a piece of the painting in the text. Sometimes, as Laurent Binet did in HHhH, she inserts herself into the text, telling us how she is feeling about Velazquez, his paintings, alternate ways that things could have gone, and her own life.

For the most part, I enjoyed the book and her approach, although there was one point somewhere between the half and the 3/4 point in the book when she lost me but it did not take long before I was re-engaged. Very well done.

For a couple of excellent reviews see Hugh's - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... - and Joseph's - https://www.goodreads.com/review/show....

[Kirsty · Rating 4 out of 5]

I adored Amy Sackville's first two novels, Orkney and The Still Point. When I spotted a copy of her newest work in my local library, therefore, I picked it up and read its blurb with interest. Painter to the King is very different in its approach, given that it marks Sackville's first foray into historical fiction, but as she is such an innovative writer, I fully expected to love it too.

Painter to the King gives a fictional account of artist Diego Velázquez, who, as a twenty three-year-old, was summoned to the court of King Philip IV of Spain. He arrived in Madrid to become the official 'painter to the King', a position which he would hold until his death.

Velázquez's job gave him 'an unparalleled view of palace life', and it is this which Sackville has set out to explore. She examines his story through his own eyes, and in consequence, '... we see an intimate relationship that is not quite a friendship, between a king and his subject, between an artist and his subject.' Sackville aims to expose 'what is shown and what is seen, about art and death and life', and dips into the spaces between.

When we first meet Velázquez, in 1622, he has ridden to Madrid from Seville: 'He had a stipend for the journey and some pride, he arrives in style: he has paid for a horse. Just one attendant on a mule with the baggage, who has no features in the dark beyond the torchlight.' He meets the King quite soon afterwards; at this point, Philip IV is not even twenty, seen as 'a man of solid flesh, and the greatest monarch in the world.' He has been the King of Spain for two years, much of that time spent mourning his late father. He would go on to rule Spain during the Thirty Years War.

The omniscient narrator of the novel speaks from a position of hindsight. When describing the King, for instance, the following is said: '... Now he is young and golden, and his people love him, and although he is melancholy by temperament he hasn't yet known many of the many sadnesses that will later come to weigh him down and pull at the corners of his eyes and cast the court into muttering silence, chafing in the draughts; all this is to come and if anyone can see it they won't speak, won't see it, or won't be listened to; only a fool would tell a truth like that one, that it's all already ending -'. The narrator also writes about experiences they have had viewing Velázquez's paintings whilst on a trip to Madrid in the modern world; I found this a thoughtful inclusion.

I loved Sackville's descriptions, and the importance of minutiae in her writing. Her prose is beautiful and rich, suffused with detail. I admired the way in which she tries to infiltrate the visions of the artist at the novel's core. She writes: 'The painter has faith in solid objects, arresting their motion through the world and preserving forever their thisness, the quiddity of matter and moisture and shine; transparency, opacity; the exterior that things present to the world, and how much of the world can be seen through them, distorted, distilled... he attends to all of this, plasticity, rigidity, fragility, damage and flaw, detail, surface and shape.'

Painter to the King is highly evocative throughout, and Sackville captures precise scenery, sights, and smells with such a deft hand. The writing here is often sensuous, particularly when Velázquez's work is described, or when evoking the entire process of creating a new painting. When she describes El Corto, the area around the palace in which civilians live and work, she writes: 'Everything here exists to serve the court, to bake its bread and cure its meat and weave and stretch its linens and sew its sleeves and tunics and undergarments; an ersatz city at the axis of a cross drawn through the country, and built upon a high dry plain across which hot winds in summer and ice winds in winter wander and gallop like madness.'

Sackville's prose is relatively experimental, and there are some sections of stream-of-consciousness here. I really liked the fresh approach which she gives to the historical novel, a genre which tends to follow a similar writing style. Sackville's rich vocabulary lends itself well to this work, and allows her to blend art and history in such a satisfying way. Painter to the King reminded me of Virginia Woolf's playful historical novel Orlando at times. She sweeps through Philip's reign, and Velázquez's career with such authority.

Painter to the King was first published in 2018, but I only found out about it when browsing in my local library in the summer of 2020; even as someone who looks out for Sackville's work, I do not find it reviewed often - or at all - and this is a great shame. I admired this interesting and unconventional work of historical fiction, but must admit that I did not find it as compelling or as breathtaking as her contemporary fiction. However, Sackville is a highly underrated writer, and one which I urge every reader to seek out. Whichever of her novels you choose to begin with, they are guaranteed to intrigue and surprise.

[Nadine in California · Rating 5 out of 5]

When you write historical fiction about a real person that is predicated on the idea that it is impossible to write historical fiction about a real person, your novel isn't going to win any popularity contests, but you will win my undying admiration for the concept and the execution. Sackville does create a 'you are there' sense of 17th century Spain, and Velazquez, the King, and even many of the more minor characters can sometimes seem exquisitely, emotionally real. But the author never lets the reader rest in that satisfactory feeling for long - she constantly undermines it through fourth wall breaks. ('You are not there' historical fiction?) She places herself squarely in the text, as she wanders through Spain, trying to find Velazquez by visiting the places he occupied during his life. It's a layered, palimpsest experience, since many of those places no longer exist, are changed beyond recognition, or are swallowed by their 21st century surroundings. And yet, she finds him, loses him, finds him. Here are examples of Sackville at work:

Creating the middle-aged Velazquez in a fictitious domestic scene:

--coming in the door of your home, late, to Juana; exhausted in the dim light, framed in dark; sitting down together and nodding off in your chair while she clears half-eaten morsels from around you; knowing you in rare moments; stay, rest, let me look at you; but he is ever self-effacing and immersed in his work and there is always--

--always work to be done, always more to be done--

Sackville applies this same technique to bring to life a lost painting whose existence is only known through an inventory list, where it's titled 'Pelican with a Bucket and Donkeys'.

...How many donkeys? Perhaps the pelican with her beak buried in elegant fine-drawn feathers, soft and blood-stained breast; and the donkeys with their scruffy scumbled thick fur; looking on? Protective? Bothering her? Braying? Totally oblivious? The bucket - almost existing - I can almost see it, this solid object, how he'd do it, the handle, the dented rim and dull gleam, copper -- or then again tin--or perhaps wooden even--the donkeys feeding from it or the pelican pouring her blood into it; no, no way of knowing, hopeless. This piece of frivolity or study from nature or high moral fable of the sort he's not normally given to making so maybe not that, this too hangs somewhere in the palace and is lost or burnt or stolen later, even the circumstances of its vanishing now obliterate and the donkeys wandered off into the wilderness of forgotten. I so much wish I could see it, and know why you made it, and what it meant; if it would offer some glimpse of you as I try to catch you in passing, find you in a catchlight or the placement of a mark--

[SueKich · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dashed irritating.

Bizarre rendering of form, format and punctuation rendered this book unreadable for me. Shame, as I was looking forward to learning something – other than how the over-zealous use of the dash can be supremely irritating. Unfinishable, I’m afraid.

[Stephen Goldenberg · Rating 4 out of 5]

A strange novel that I didn’t think I was going to like when I started it but it grew on me. It is supposed to be a fictional biography of Velasquez but it’s much more about King Philip 1v and his court. As a character, Velasquez is as sketchy as one suspects he was in real life. The novel is a schematic third person stream of consciousness that is short on narrative but long on atmosphere. Amy Sackville paints a very vivid picture of court life - the sights, sounds and especially the smells. And she also manages the very difficult task of describing both Velasquez painting processes and the finished works (it helps if you know the paintings or have reproductions to hand.
The only thing I wasn’t sure about was the short interspersed sections where she describes her own research visits to Madrid.

[Rob Adey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an amazing piece of historical fiction writing. It's almost more a work of art history than a novel - and I have to admit, I lost some interest towards the end (once you've made your point that historical traces are incomplete and you can never know what actually happened, maybe have some Vikings attack or something?)... but that may be more because I approached it expecting more of a story. But the imaginative exercise is really impressive.

[Eleanor · Rating 5 out of 5]

In 1622, Diego Velazquez traveled to Madrid from Seville. In December of that year, he was appointed painter to Felipe IV of Spain and invited to bring his wife and daughter to court. He would retain that position - painter to the king - until his death in 1660. Amy Sackville, in her third novel, zooms all the way in on Velazquez's life and work at court.

While it might be described as a fictional biography, what Painter to the King does most consistently and remarkably is convey what it feels like to be someone who sees the world as a painter - as this particular painter - does. Velazquez's naturalistic style, his insistence on using live models, his relatively limited colour palette, all attract mockery, even scorn, from other painters, but it is the quality of his vision that makes Felipe value him. He sees people, and what he sees is, not unkindly but nevertheless with great fidelity, what he paints. Sackville's prose style here is tactile, interested in texture and colour, lights and darks, heat and coolness, sky and earth. The encrusted paint on Velazquez's fingers; the heft and bulk of a water jug. It also constantly interrupts itself; we feel we are inside the head of the artist, particularly in scenes like the one in which he tries, again and again, to capture exactly the musculature of a horse's leg, the swell of its belly, the flick of its tail. The sentences are breathless, fragmented, em-dash-heavy:

...dip, swipe, dip, swipe: The leg of the horse curves up into the belly here, like –– Here, the top of the leg rounding into the socket like –– The curve of the belly barrel-like –

–– No

It's maybe the most effective technique for describing the process of artistic creation that I've ever seen.

There is another intruding narrative voice: that of someone who might be the author, and is certainly an observer; someone who knows Velazquez's paintings well, through long acquaintance with them in galleries and museums. That voice lifts you out of seventeenth-century Spain, but not, I would contend, in a distracting way: on the contrary, it provides necessary breathing room, in amongst all that painterly detail. All together, Painter to the King is a little like the bastard child of How To Be Both and Wolf Hall, but to compare it is to diminish it: it is its own thing, and that thing is very good.

[Lee Peckover · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a challenging but rewarding look at the life of Spanish painter diego velazquez. Much of the prose here feels like Amy Sackville is painting with words. While the artist she discusses is known for realistic creations this book is very much the opposite of that. Here we have beautiful images created through words that somehow weave together a story framed by a narrator looking back on the life of an artist through his own works. If that sounds a little unusual, it's because this book is just that. Unusual, odd, challenging, rewarding, poignant, modern yet classical.
This book resists obvious classification. I am not sure exactly who I could recommend this to. However, I would have doubted my own enjoyment of this book given that I had never heard of the artist, had never seen his works and I have little interest in the historical period covered. And yet, I still really enjoyed it. So, if you're in the market for something a little different, I guess I would advise giving this a go.

[Val · Rating 4 out of 5]

The painter is Diego Velázquez and the king is Phillip (or Felipe) IV of Spain. The book is historical fiction, sticking closely to historical fact, but imagining the characters' thoughts and feelings to flesh them out. Scenes and personalities at the court are mainly shown through descriptions of paintings by Velázquez, which works well.

[Matthias · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sackville's eloquent descriptions of Velazquez' paintings and of scenes in his life as if they were paintings make you feel like you are walking through paintings. It creates a desire for more substance, which is, maybe naturally, denied.

[Pamela · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fascinating look at the Court of Philip IV of Spain through the works of court painter Diego Velázquez. Amy Sackville's work is imaginative, visually evocative and thoughtful as she traces the years from Velázquez's arrival at court in 1622 to his death in 1660. The court is claustrophobic and rigidly formal, the King is a prisoner of his position and expectations, his sensuality and his devout religious beliefs. Velázquez paints the king throughout his reign, reflecting how the passing of the years and family tragedy mark his features.

Sackville's style is fragmented with lots of dashes and unfinished phrases. While some readers may find this disconcerting, it takes the reader into the thoughts and half-thoughts of the characters, in a way that is reminiscent of Hilary Mantel's Cromwell books. It also reinforces the visual elements of the narrative, linking to the paintings. I was only familiar with two or three Velázquez paintings, but found I could easily recognise or imagine Sackville's descriptions, and I enjoyed conducting further research after finishing the book.

The story of Philip and this period is a sad and lonely one, with early death figuring at regular intervals, but it is also an interesting one. This book casts a light on this historical period and is thus worth reading on its own account, but it also explores how art and the artist play their part in constructing their own version of reality for future generations. I loved this - I will definitely read more by the talented Amy Sackville and am curious to see whether her other topics will grab my imagination in the same way.

[Aoife · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was not a book that I would have chosen to read if it hadn’t been for bookclub; I’m so glad I read it though. I hated the first few pages and then suddenly I found myself loving it. To me this is a boon about beautiful prose that provides a high level but clear view of the reign of King Philip IV of Spain from when Velázquez arrived at court. And it’s all told through paintings but in a very indirect way. This book had me constantly googling images of his paintings and where a week ago I thought this was an era of paintings I’m not interested in, i now want to see them. Especially those with of the royal family. I’m so surprised that the style and content of this book worked for me but it did.

[Zoe · Rating 5 out of 5]

The most beautiful narrative. Amy’s writing is wonderfully evocative, we see the world through the painter’s eyes. On the whole a silent character, the painter is an observer who paints and describes exactly what he sees. At times the narrative breaks down and we hear the author’s own voice describing the places she herself visited (the same locations feature in the book) but with a lament for what is no longer there. I have the added pleasure of working opposite the National Gallery, where some of Velázquez’ paintings are displayed. Not just a novel, but a literary experience. Simply stunning.

[Rose Stanley · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an extraordinary book - partly a fangirl's tribute to Velasquez and his work (I did a LOT of Google image searches while reading this - a visit to the Prado is clearly long overdue), partly a step back through time into 17th century Spain, partly a melancholy reflection on mortality as we see Philip IV's legacy inevitably, inexorably, crumbling around him (this is basically the beginning of the end of the Spanish Habsburg line...Charles II of Spain anyone?). Also, the writing is mesmerising.

Not a book I would have picked out for myself ordinarily, so many thanks to the Wigtown Book Festival for including it in the box of books I received last year!

[Deb Lancaster · Rating 5 out of 5]

From a constant fight with myself to accept the stream of consciousness style, through irritably looking up every painting referenced, to acceptance of the breaking the fourth wall style of writing... I totally and utterly love this book.

I have never given Velazquez much thought, other than to be fascinated by Bacon's Pope triptych based on his very different Pope. This book brings him to life in a way a straight biography never can.

By the end of this novel that feels like real life, I cried when he died.

It's brilliant.

[Eileen Hall · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not usually a fan of "faction" stories, as sometimes the author takes liberties with the real subject, but this is an exception.
Diego Velazquez, one of my favourite painters, has been summoned to the court of Philip IV to paint portraits of the Spanish King and his family.
This tells very vividly his life at court, with copious mentions of his famous works of art done during that time.
An ideal book for anyone new to art in general without wading through, sometimes dry biographies, which may put them off the subject.
Highly recommended.
I was given a digital copy of this book by the publisher Granta via Netgalley in return for an honest unbiased review.

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 out of 5. Fictional biography of Diego Velasquez at the court of Philip IV of Spain. The stream-of-consciousness text put me off at first but as I got used to it, the novel grew on me. Most of all I liked the description of each picture the artist painted and the circumstances under which they were painted, together with an index to whichever was described; the novel only showed a small bit of each picture. The pictures came more alive to me than the characters.

[Anna · Rating 2 out of 5]

The fools know that nothing’s solid and consensus can’t keep us forever from chaos.

A lavish Velázquez exhibition in words. A bittersweet sensual delight if you are face to face with the works, and a strand of slightly suffocating narrative meringues if you’re reading it after Christmas, as I did.

[Erica · Rating 4 out of 5]

It took me a bit to get used to the writer's style but once I did I enjoyed learning about life at the court of King Philip IV of Spain and the famous painter Diego Velasquez.

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

Extraordinary!
Exquisite prose.
I liked it ... a lot.

[Stephen Heiner · Rating 4 out of 5]

In the past I've mostly read traditional historical fiction, but in the last month I've had a chance to read three different takes on the genre in Julian Barnes' Noise of Time, Steven Pressfield's Gates of Fire, and Amy Sackville's Painter to the King.

I definitely did not expect the stream of consciousness approach but it actually made for a wonderful match with the process of painting. I also appreciated the ongoing threaded reminder of the passing nature of the world. All crowns, all beautiful art, all fame, will pass away into dust and nothingness.

"...they do not wear crowns, these kings. All the weight of the reign is worn invisibly." (p. 24)

"You try standing rigid for hours in the heat; try to know every muscle in order not to move it; try to remain radiant, perfect, luminous, always; try to be always inhabiting the outside of yourself, to meet the perceptions of others; try to rise above the rawness of fear and of grief before you have a chance to feel them. Nothing can touch you and everything is fine. You will have an heir (a legitimate one). Your pregnant Queen will give you a healthy boy. You will win your wars. You will tolerate no traitors. Your people will work, and eat, and be true to God, and heretics will be chased out with their tails burning. Your world will remain stable and your lands will provide, your lands across the whole of the globe will bring forth bounty and will not quake or tremble and neither will your hand. Things are slipping under him and yet he remains, in public, always poised." (p. 82)

"To describe a thing, you describe the space around it; until you encounter the brim, the fringe, the outline, where the thing's edges meet the world you find it in." (p. 108)

"And even when they are clean and still as he sits down in the candledark his mind is still daubing and drawing, oil-grimed fingers feeling for the forms, still working over surfaces to find the feel of them." (p. 109)

"Just weeks later all is in motion, and San Jeronimo is no longer so peaceful. On reflection, looking at the plans, at the modest planned expansion...it seems, while they're about it, that a wing on the other side would be just as well, to balance it. Towers, at the corners, would look good; and if there are towers there should be another story, or else where would the stairs go to? ...And a hermitage here, in this pleasant quiet corner, which is surely crying out for one. And an orangery, we'll have the trees shipped in spring. And a garden here in the formal style, we'll cut shapes, lions, bulls, all kinds of fantastical things, gryphons and so forth, yes, for that we'll need myrtles. And then a courtyard in front so the King can make sport and there will be fiestas and lances and bullfights. A walkway between - yes, with more trees. Elms. Planes. And another hermitage. And another here? So that will need a garden, too. And actually these rooms are all wrong. If the King is to receive guests then we'll need a throne room, and a larger salon; so knock those down, now, the bricks can be re-used and drawings re-drawn." (p. 144)

"This endless feast, this on-going zarzuela, this song and drama and feast and dance, this bottomless exuberance, kept within the palace walls could go on for years. That clatter in the background isn't bones or armor or lances, it is only cutlery being washed up in the kitchens. Supplies are seemingly limitless - enough - too much - of everything; of nothing - " (p. 195)

"...he sits among his books, reading, communing with the dead, listening with his glassed eyes to their advice and their advice is that they have none to give and they can't be of help." (p. 197)

"In short - do you understand? - it's all going to ground - to the grave - to shit - and always has been. So face it bravely, gentlemen; be disenchanted. Behind and beneath everything: nothing." (p. 232)

"The King's bastard's mother, she's dead also, he's been informed; years since he's seen La Calderona but he hears she's died quietly, abbess of her convent, such a waste, he has wasted so much in this world, women, prayers, time...everything taken from him, everything ending the same way, everything passing - " (p. 237)

[Alex Sarll]

A book about Velázquez in the court of Philip IV, which is supposedly a novel, just as the Paul Morley book about Tony Wilson I've been reading at the same time is supposedly a biography, even though they turn out to have much more in common with each other than with their alleged genres, each of them spiralling, self-questioning, awed by another medium*. Which here manifests as the writer occasionally intruding, admitting with exasperation and resignation that the artefacts with which she's surrounded her protagonist lack the solidity and truth of those with which he surrounded his sitters, that the places she describes are long gone and no better sources exist than the paintings she boldly ventures to describe. False modesty, I should emphasise; she catches the solemn absurdity/absurd solemnity of the sepulchral Habsburg court perfectly, not to mention the heat and dust - this was a perfect pairing for our own increasingly unbearable summers. Most impressive of all is that the execution, the swirl and shadow of the thing, carried me through even though the plot, true as it may be, begins as precisely that most exhausted cliché of the art biopic, wherein the provincial who keeps it real outrages the stuffy, fussy coterie who were previously in favour. All it's missing is boiled goose. But I can forgive that for the mood of carefully obscured decline, Olivares' determination never to let anyone realise that the golden age is ending, so familiar from our own moment of crumbling empire. And even though this only came out a couple of years back, it already feels prescient, little details from the years of grim confinement to inflation to the king feeling more constricted than empowered by his role echoing louder now than they could have on publication. The central presence of a hefty fixer, the monarch desperate for an heir, and the present tense of the telling inevitably suggest Wolf Hall, but it's clear that Sackville has carefully considered each element of her style, rather than adopting anyone else's toolkit wholesale; from the shifting perspective, to the reluctance to use names (a welcome alternative to all those endless bloody Thomases), to her own greater (or more readily admitted) presence in the narrative, there are as many differences as similarities. Certainly, though, they deserve to be talked about in the same breath. I finish this starkly reminded of how much time takes from us, how little trace we leave, and in general of what a painful business humanity is, yet awed by the artistry with which the unpalatable truths were told.

*Also, each beginning their chapters with a tag from a Romance language, then translating it; hell, this one even finds a small role for a coquettish English fool known as Antonio, and the other's frame of reference is so broad that I wouldn't be the least bit surprised by a namecheck for the painter.

[Kirstie Ellen]

DNF at 16%

This was really not my cup of tea, which was disappointing because I had thought this would make for an interesting read. It's set during the reign of King Philip IV of Spain and I was hoping I'd learn more about this in this book.

But what didn't work for me was a combination of two things. There was firstly a complete lack of plot or intrigue. We're introduced to the character of the Painter who is in favour of the King. The King wants him and only him to paint his portraits and it's a very slow commentary on what court life was like as an outsider. But not much happens and I found it exceedingly boring trying to pick out what was going on.

The second thing that didn't work for me was the writing. It is nonsensical at best. The book reads as a stream of consciousness that is frequently cut off mid-sentence with an excessive use of dashes that only serve to confuse and distract the reader. It was increasingly confusing to understand how many narrators there were, as both the author and the character seem to be commenting on the events that occur from two different timelines, but no clear distinction is ever made.

Safe to say, even at the meagre 16% mark / 50 pages in, this gave me enough of a headache to set it aside and move on to other things. I could see how people might appreciate this writing style if it's something you enjoy, but for me it was only inhibiting my reading experience.

Happy reading!

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one is such a conundrum. Very frustrating. I both loved it and yet found it incredibly difficult to read and maintain an interest in. At first it is difficult to get into, as it is written in a choppy, frantic manner, and more disconcertingly, it disrupts itself constantly, suspending the reality that was being painted, which is charming in its way but mostly annoying. The pictures, I didn’t get. I don’t understand what they added, even in a novel about pictures they did not feel relevant. It’s a story created from the paintings left behind by Diego Velasquez, painter to Philip IV. We see the world through Diego’s eyes, what he would have seen, what he might have thought, how he suspended these small moments in time forever by preserving them in paint.

Beautiful but overly fussy; there are many detailed, flowing, never ending sentences, disjointed fragments, and not a lot of plot; it’s all in the style with this one. I love the fact that it’s an ode to painting, one long painting of sentences itself, to honour a great painter and the act of painting, what it leaves behind, a record of history. However there’s no emotional investment in the series of historical events happening.