Edouard Manet's
Dejeuner sur l'Herbe
1863
I marvel at how fate pulls the strings: Recently, I went on a day trip to Paris. I was meant to meet someone for lunch but it never happened. Instead, I went to visit the Musée D’Orsey.
I wasn’t expecting to feel quite so emotional but the works of those people I spent so much time with, in my head, during the worst of my grieving, was like returning to the company of old, intimate, friends.
James Whistler standing on the left
wearing black greatcoat,
bushy hair and moustache.
I not only reconnected with the paintings I wrote about in Mesmerised, but was struck by two portraits, each of a company of artists.
Out of both, a painter stared back at me, as if goading the commencement of the next book in the Gachet series.
Claude Monet on the far right.
One of those geniuses was Claude Monet, and the other James Whistler.
I can still feel those Muses circling around me, waiting to invade my psyche, but I’m in the throes of writing another book right now, and besides, more research needs to be done, so not quite yet. I hope they are patient. The die is cast …
Claude Monet's
Dejeuner sur l'Herbe
1866