Over the past fortnight, I have read terrifying accounts of holidaymakers fleeing fires and enduring suffocating heat. Also, I have looked at friends’ photos of soggy staycations.
‘Pack for a Scottish summer,’ I advised my younger son who was at Scouts camp in the New Forest last week. Once I have dealt with his mildewed laundry, we will head to Slovenia. It is Alpine and verdant — there may be rainstorms.
On a staycation, I might see out a squally day with a good novel and board games. Abroad, I like a spot of cultural tourism.
When the mercury soars or the heavens open, a museum or art gallery can provide cool shelter. In Italy, I might get to know its fabulous cultural heritage by reading one of the many historical novels inspired by the lives of its artists.
If my travels took me to Vienna, I would read The Flames, by Sophie Haydock, about the women who sat for and inspired Egon Schiele’s often troubling portraits
In the Netherlands, anyone would want to see works by Vermeer, whose household and artistic practice in Delft were brought to vivid life by Girl With A Pearl Earring, by Tracy Chevalier
Just published is Disobedient by Elizabeth Fremantle, a gripping account of the early life of baroque prodigy Artemisia Gentileschi, one of the only women painters sutherland shire prior to the 20th century to be assessed as equivalent or better than her male contemporaries.
At the heart of Fremantle’s searing novel is the rape of Artemisia and the subsequent trial of her rapist, which shockingly involved the artist being tortured during questioning.
If my travels took me to Vienna, I would read The Flames, by Sophie Haydock, about the women who sat for and inspired Egon Schiele’s often troubling portraits.
The book offers a haunting portrait of Vienna at the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian empire.
In the Netherlands, anyone would want to see works by Vermeer, whose household and artistic practice in Delft were brought to vivid life by Girl With A Pearl Earring, by Tracy Chevalier. The renowned painting which inspired her novel hangs in the Hague’s Mauritshuis.
Not going anywhere this summer? Then let these novels and the art that inspired them transport you to their worlds.
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