Regarding Ingres:Fourteen Short StoriesDarin StraussLabel: Rizzoli International PublicationsDescription: Following the successful literary musings on art at the Frick The Sleeve Should Be Illegal and Cocktails with a Curator this anthology of newly commissioned texts from graduate students in New York University s Creative Writing Program pays homage to one of the institution s most celebrated paintings. Gathered here are fourteen fictional stories inspired by one of Ingres s most captivating portrait paintings. A detail of the work the fine silk dress a red ribbon a shawl casually draped over the arm of a chair the contents of a tabletop the contemplative pose is the starting point for each story. The pieces range from gothic tales that take place at the time of the painting in the mid-nineteenth century and stories that use the countess as a key character to a present-day ghost story and inventive sagas that take representations of the countess to faraway lands: Poland Trinidad and Tobago Brazil India and a heaven that is populated solely by Black people. The faculty adviser for the project is best-selling novelist Darin Strauss who writes the book s introduction. Illustrated with Ingres s famous portrait as well as with many lush details this one-of-a-kind volume is an ode both traditional and postmodern to a glorious work of art.
