Woman in Blue: A profound meditation on art, looking and love - Paperback

by Douglas Bruton (Author)

'You will live beyond one lifetime and beyond even two in the painting he makes of you.'

In the Rijksmuseum of Amsterdam, there is a painting called Woman in Blue Reading a Letter. Each day a man visits to gaze at it. He is irresistibly drawn to it. Obsessed by it. He studies the painting, in search of resolutions to his past and present loves, and the Woman in Blue studies him back. For there is more to the Woman in Blue than any of the men who gaze upon her realizes she has a story of her own to tell.

With a delicate balance of truth and fiction, past and present, Bruton masterfully explores the intersection between art, artist and viewer, arriving at a profound meditation on love and creation.

Author Biography

Douglas Bruton is the author of five previous novels: The Chess Piece Magician (2009), Mrs Winchester's Gun Club (2019), Blue Postcards (2021), With or Without Angels (2022) and Hope Never Knew Horizon (2024). Blue Postcards was longlisted for the Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction 2021. His short fiction has appeared in various publications including Northwords Now, New Writing Scotland, Aesthetica, The Fiction Desk and the Irish Literary Review, and has won competitions including Fish and the Neil Gunn Prize. He lives in the Scottish Borders.