After reading Anima Rising I decided to re-read Moore’s other book relating to artists and the art world Sacré Bleu. If Anima Rising was a strange tale, Sacré Blue is even stranger.
The book follows Lucien, a baker in Paris in the 1890s and the odd association with the pigment blue that artists are getting from The Colorman (first name The, last name Colorman he insists). It also involves nude models who are also associated with The Colorman.
Famous painters come and go starting with the death of Vincent Van Gogh. Toulouse-Lautrec is one of the main characters but there are many other artists who appear in the novel – Pissaro, Manet, Renoir and more. Theo Van Gogh is also there.
Ultimately everything is tied to the sacred blue paint and a muse who inspires painters.
The book ends with the death of The Colorman and a tale that stretches back some thirty thousand years. The muse ends up inhabiting the body of Juliette with whom Lucien is taken. The two of them head off to Barcelona in search of a Spanish painter who, according to Juliette (now the muse) is in serious need of the sacred blue paint.
This book is seriously good, occasionally very funny and once agin ties together real life events with fiction.
More later…
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