Painter Of The Damned

A soul mate trapped in purgatory. Dangerous alliances. The quest for ultimate power. After escaping Venice with their lives, Nick & Julia O'Connor have one goal: return home so they can end their nightmare vacation. But before they reach the American consulate, they're captured by Interpol and returned to Venice. Behind Nick's detention is Salvatore della Porta, the corrupt head of an ancient, enigmatic order that controls Paradise, Tintoretto's Renaissance masterpiece that's also a purgatory for thousands of souls-including Nick's soul mate from the 16th century. Della Porta believes Nick's previous life knows the location of a book lost to the ages. This mysterious manuscript will bring him world-changing power-or topple the order. As Nick's link to the past consumes him, it's up to Julia to save her husband and crush della Porta. But with friends in short supply, she must enlist Carlo Zuccaro, unaware the young artist is the order's new Painter and warden of the damned.

A soul mate trapped in purgatory. Dangerous alliances. The quest for ultimate power. FINALIST - AMERICAN WRITING AWARDS HONORABLE MENTION - READERS' FAVORITE AWARDS BOOKSHELF AWARD NOMINEE - THE WRITERS LOUNGE After escaping Venice with their lives, Nick & Julia O’Connor have one goal: return home so they can end their nightmare vacation. But before they reach the American consulate, they’re captured by Interpol and returned to Venice. Behind Nick’s detention is Salvatore della Porta, the corrupt head of an ancient, enigmatic order that controls Paradise, Tintoretto’s Renaissance masterpiece that’s also a purgatory for thousands of souls—including Nick’s soul mate from the 16th century. Della Porta believes Nick’s previous life knows the location of a book lost to the ages. This mysterious manuscript will bring him world-changing power—or topple the order. As Nick’s link to the past consumes him, it’s up to Julia to save her husband and crush della Porta. But with friends in short supply, she must enlist Carlo Zuccaro, unaware the young artist is the order’s new Painter and warden of the damned. “...a genre-bending masterwork.” - David L. Robbins, New York Times bestselling author of The Devil’s Waters and Isaac’s Beacon "You will want to read Painter of the Damned. Period!" - Yasmin Angoe, bestselling author of Her Name is Knight “...an uncommonly intelligent, shrewd and deftly paced thriller...” - Gary McAvoy, bestselling author of The Magdalene Chronicles “A truly unique thriller blending elements of mystery, suspense and loads of action, Painter of the Damned takes readers on a journey unlike any other.” - Andrew Clawson, author of The Arthurian Relic and the Harry Fox series “Impossible to predict and equally impossible to put down...” - Jane Thornley, bestselling author of The Agency of the Ancient Lost & Found historical mystery thriller series

In A Brief History of the Artist from God to Picasso, Paul Barolsky explores the ways in which fiction shapes history and history informs fiction. It is a playful book about artistic obsession, about art history as both tragedy and farce, and about the heroic and the mock-heroic. The book demonstrates that the modern idea of the artist has deep roots in the image of the epic poet, from Homer to Ovid to Dante. Barolsky’s major claim is that the history of the artist is inseparable from historical fiction about the artist and that fiction is essential to the reality of the artist’s imagination.

Some of the world’s most celebrated works of art—the Mona Lisa and The Birth of Venus, to name just two—were produced during the period of cultural reawakening known as the Renaissance. Painters of the era incorporated new techniques and ideals while reflecting in their works the dramatic social, religious, and political changes of the time. Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and El Greco are just a few of the notable Renaissance artists profiled in this volume, which also includes vibrant images of a number of influential works.

Vol. 1: Life Giotto (1334) is the first European artist about whom it is possible to write following the schema of "life and work". The situation of the sources, however, is complicated: On Giotto's life, there are – on the one hand – biographical accounts from the mid-fourteenth century onwards that responded to various ideological requirements (patriotism, humanism, Renaissance ideology, cult of the artist); on the other, there is extensive documentary material from Giotto's lifetime, which seems to reflect less the biography of an artist than that of a bourgeois businessman resolutely climbing the social ladder. The present volume focuses on this second aspect of the Giotto figure's double life relating it to the form of existence of the pre-modern artist. Vol. 2: Works The paintings examined and contextualised in this volume are those secured for Giotto through early written sources. These sources also help to reconstruct the sequence of his works and artistic inventions as is plausible in the context of media culture in the decades around and after 1300: while Giotto was spiritually and intellectually formed in the sphere of the Florentine Dominicans, his artistic path began in Rome in the shadow of the Curia. The breakthrough to his own artistic concept came immediately before and during his work in Padua. In addition to prominent churchmen, ecclesiastical institutions, and the King of Naples, his clients were predominantly members of Italy's urban and financial elites. The adoption and further development of his inventions by other - especially Sienese - painters pressured him in his later years to try new approaches again. Vol. 3: Survival Giotto is considered by many to be the founder of modern painting. This thesis is discussed and modified in the present volume on an empirical basis. What emerges is that Giotto's impact cannot be reduced simply to the introduction of the study of nature. Rather, his art was involved in the development of pictorial idioms that were attuned to the skills and interests of their audiences. The new approaches in his painting contributed in particular to the possibility of examining and communicating psychological, narrative and allegorical content of great complexity outside the media of language and text, which not only changed the face of European art but certainly contributed to the intellectual opening of Western societies.

The paintings examined and contextualised in this volume are those secured for Giotto through early written sources. These sources also help to reconstruct the sequence of his works and artistic inventions as is plausible in the context of media culture in the decades around and after 1300: while Giotto was spiritually and intellectually formed in the sphere of the Florentine Dominicans, his artistic path began in Rome in the shadow of the Curia. The breakthrough to his own artistic concept came immediately before and during his work in Padua. In addition to prominent churchmen, ecclesiastical institutions, and the King of Naples, his clients were predominantly members of Italy's urban and financial elites. The adoption and further development of his inventions by other - especially Sienese - painters pressured him in his later years to try new approaches again.