The Painter of Spirits

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Paul Furneret, a young artist working in Paris in 1901, is invited to attend a séance at Camille Flammarion’s observatory after having participated in an experiment in “automatic drawing” at another séance a week earlier, in which he drew a picture, while unconscious under hypnosis, of a young woman recognized by one of the participants as his dead daughter.

Paul’s friend, Victor Marvaud, is unable to accompany him, as arranged, because a ship carrying another of their friends, Gaston Lambrunet, has struck a rock in the Channel, and although all the passengers have been put into lifeboats, the one containing Gaston’s mother and sister has not yet reached land. Victor insists however, that Flammarion’s séance is too important for him to miss, and, in order to make sure that he gets there, has asked his physician, Antoine Cros, to take Paul to the observatory in his stead.

The skeptical Cros is also escorting the writer Jane de La Vaudère, who has previously taken part in Flammarion’s experiments, and the two of them provide Paul with a great deal of food for thought on the journey. Their contrasted perspectives become all the more significant when Paul, hypnotized by a “magnetizer” named Madame Zosima, produces four images, including one of Gaston’s sister, whose lifeboat still has not landed yet, Dr. Cros’s late brother Charles, and a woman tentatively identified as Jane’s long-dead mother.

Cros tries hard to provide a naturalistic explanations of what Paul has done, but the uncertainty as to the fate of the lifeboat turns Paul’s artwork and its apparent supernatural nature into headline news, spurring the participants in the séance to meet up again in Dr. Cros’s house the following night in order to discuss the implications of Paul’s seeming ability to draw the dead, albeit unconsciously.

A second experiment produces even more challenging results, which throw Paul’s life into dire confusion, nearly cost a young model her life, and also affect the lives of his new acquaintances, leaving Paul with difficult dilemmas to address and an intriguing metaphysical mystery to resolve...

Cover by Daniele Serra

Published by Black Coat Press in October 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61227-900-8

Review by Sally Startup

Set in France at the very start of the twentieth century, this is a novel about occult phenomena and artistic creation. Paul Furneret, a young artist, has previously followed his symbolist training, painting imaginary subjects. Now, in 1901, Symbolism is becoming unfashionable. So, at the instigation of his friend Victor Mauvard, a banker, Paul has rented an apartment in Paris. In a change of artistic direction, he has employed a suitable model and begun work on a painting of Jean d’Arc’s martyrdom. Victor has also arranged for Paul to attempt to paint under hypnosis in a séance at Camille Flammarion’s observatory.

The event turns out to be intriguing, not only to Flammarion, the scientific observer, but to several others. These include Dr Cros, who is something of an expert on the unconscious mind; Jane de La Vaudère the writer of scandalous novels; Madame Zosima the mesmerist, and her medium, Talia. Between them, as these characters meet and converse, they help Paul to develop his own personal theories about what might be happening to him. It seems he can create portraits of the dead while under hypnosis, but some of the subjects are people he has never met. Unfortunately, he has also painted someone he does know, and love. Anguish about what this could mean torments him as he tries to continue work on the canvas of Jean d’Arc.

Paul is variously counselled by the other characters, including the world-weary artist’s model and prostitute, Juliette, for whom he has begun to feel responsible. Perhaps he is a true visionary. Perhaps his art portrays the deep workings of his own unconscious mind. Or perhaps his experience is the natural result of talent and dedication to his art. He studiously considers all possibilities without prejudice, which allows the reader to study along with him. As the tale unfolds, he must choose how to act according to the truths of his own art and life.

The Brian Stableford Website