All PostsThe Salon by Nick Bertozzi. St. Martin’s Griffin, 2007. 182p, 8.5 x 5.875″, color, $19.95.
I’ve had this book for months and have put off reviewing it. I reread it through two or three times and skimmed parts of it a few times more. I have mixed feelings about it, which I hope I can put down with some sense.
The Salon is a historical fiction comic. Taking place in Paris in the early part of the 20th century (1907 or so, I think), the narrative is a mystery/thriller starring a variety of artists of the period–Picasso, Braque, Stein, Satie, Apollinaire–and their acquaintances (Stein’s brother Leo and her lover Alice Toklas). The main narrative involves a special absinthe that allows the drinker to enter the space of a painting. A series of murders is related to the painter Gaughin and his mistress. The group of artists set out to solve the mystery, mostly to save their own lives–they believe they are in danger. Interspersed with this are two other stories: Braque and Picasso meeting and the beginning of cubism as well as the meeting of Gertrude Stein and Alice Toklas with the accompanying rift that forms with Gertrude’s brother Leo.
Part of my indecision about the narrative in The Salon is due to the unwieldy grafting of the “Braque and Picasso create cubism” story onto the “magical absinthe murder” story. I’d like to think there is some connection between the multiple perspectives of cubism and the absinthe’s power to let users enter paintings, but I can’t quite work out an interesting correspondence. I find the cubism and the Stein’s story much more interesting than the murder mystery story, which is a shame as the latter is the main focus of the book.
The use of historical figures in a fictional story like this brings up all sorts of questions in regards to just how fictional the more historical parts of the book are. Obviously there is no magical absinthe, but some of the events that just sit just outside the mystery have a closer semblance to reality. What about the portrayal of the characters? Was Leo Stein really that petty and even downright… morally corrupt? Was Picasso so brash and… annoying? I’ve been reading a book about cubism this week and it did elucidate a few things (Matisse and Picasso really did exchange paintings with each other as a truce of sorts). I would have loved to see a set of historical/research/bibliographical notes like Chester Brown has in Louis Riel to answer some of my questions. I had to take it all with a grain of salt in the final analysis.
In regards to the characters, I get the feeling Bertozzi had the idea to use these characters but then wasn’t sure what to do with all of them. Satie (of whom I am a fan) has almost no part to play in the story, nor does Apollinaire. Both seem to be there more to round out the group than anything else. A tighter group might have enabled a little more for developing the main characters. Thinking about the protagonists I start to think that the real central figures here are Gertrude and Leo Stein. Perhaps that is the hidden primary narrative of The Salon. The mystery and the Picasso/Braque interactions serve as much as adjacent parts of the Stein domestic drama as the domestic drama serves the mystery story. My continuing shift in opinion on this highlights, to me, a certain lack of focus in the book that hurts it as a narrative.
I don’t want to give the impression that I really disliked this book. If I have issues with it on a narrative level, visually it is a stunning and well composed comic. Bertozzi’s art is inspiring, particularly for his use of ever changing color schemes. He uses black lines and two tones each of two different colors. One color is used for the characters and the occasional object of focus, while the other color is used for the backgrounds. The two colors used change with each scene. Not all the color schemes work equally well, but mostly they are successful and attractive. The use of a different color for characters/foregrounding makes those elements “pop” a bit from the background but the colors are combined in such a way that the background is not lost. Long before I read any of The Salon, I saw samples of the art and was inspired by this use of color. He only varies from this scheme for objects and people related to the magic absinthe, which are drawn with light blue lines filled in with white. This gives these special objects/people/settings a ghostly variance with the rest of the panel.
Speaking of the backgrounds, Bertozzi does an excellent job creating the illusion of the historical past in his settings. How accurate they are, I have no idea, but they worked to convey setting. This is added to by the fine compositional structure of the panels. Great use is made of depth. Barely a panel passes that is not suffused with a sense of foreground, midground, and background.
The characters have a cartoony plasticity to them that allows for expression and movement without losing the concept of them as representations of real people. Bertozzi conveys a lot of information through the looks and stances of his characters.
In the end, the images and the skill with which they are made (color, composition, expression, etc) pull the narrative through and provide the real pleasure of the book. If I have qualms about the weaknesses in the story of The Salon, I have none about the art. This is a much better display of Bertozzi’s talents than the placid and banal Houdini: The Handcuff King (which is also a rather poor example of Jason Lutes skill).
I really liked this book, although I definitely could have used some historical notes or annotations, not just to mention the veracity of the characterizations, but also to identify some of the art and historical figures for an ignoramus about art history like me. But I still really enjoyed it, for all the reasons you name, and while I also liked the Picasso/Braque plot the best, I didn’t find the other plots to be lacking. But hey, to each his own, right?