This is an exciting, highly readable and important book about creation, art, Nazi art dealings, and complicated relationships. I loved reading this, its explorations of art and artists, and the mystery of the slashing of a famous painting in Amsterdam. The book takes you to South Africa and the enormous problem of apartheid in people's lives, and through fascinating places in Europe. The ending is a very surprising and gratifying close to the story. I couldn't stop reading it, page after page until the dramatic end.

This book is a gratifying revelation of the aesthetic sensibilities of a psychiatrist. Rothenberg has turned his analytic insights into fiction that brings to life the power of paintings--their form and color--on the visual and emotional responses of the characters, each of whom reacts in ways that reflect his and her emotional conflicts and attempts at resolutions. The plot is developed much as is a mystery or detective story. It lures the reader on to discover the evolution of the interactions among the characters and their relations to the life of three paintings. These complex interactions revolve around the mystery and partial destruction and revival of two of the three paintings. Rothenberg's articulation of the feelings, thoughts, fantasies and intimate interrelations, physical as well as imagined, among the characters shows how his expertise as a psychiatrist has given substance to his descriptions of the characters, but just as important is the exemplifaction of his knowledge of the techniques of painting and his talents as a novelist. I found it difficult to put the book down each time I was interrupted by various distractions.

a medical doctor who likes the santity of a black-white boxed world of classification, forces theory in lieu of rationalization, esp. in the chapter on homosexuality and its relationship to the creative endevor. a blurred, inconsistant work that should be avoided when researching this topic

Rothenberg looks at creativity from the perspective of a scientist. He examines psychological ideas- Freudian, depression, bi-polar, schizophrenia; linguistic trends- use of alliteration, metaphors, rhymes; personality characteristics- motivated, determined, and able to organize one's ideas; and relates them all to his search for answers to why some can create such wonderful works of art. He dispells myths about creativity being some mystical birth-right that only the chosen few possess, and implies the conclusion that creativity is more the product of an aware mind and feeling human being than tormented genius. Good book, quick read.