Poslední půlšilink - Život malíře – Maugham William Somerset (2017)

A novel by a classic of English literature from 1919, inspired by the life of the genius French painter Paul Gauguin. His fate is reflected in the fate of the main character of the novel, Charles Strickland, a stockbroker who seemingly without reason leaves his wife and children at the age of forty. After a radical change of environment and embarking on an uncertain painting career, he finds himself in poverty and often on the brink of death. Maugham, with naturalistic precision and unique narrative mastery, describes how Strickland destroys not only himself but also his close surroundings with his rude behavior, indifference, and tyrannical arrogance. Although he does not side with him, he excuses his displays of artistic genius, which few recognized in his time. When the narrator arrives in Tahiti after the war, Strickland's last station, he encounters a somewhat milder and more settled image of Strickland. The painter found a place where he could create, a woman who took care of him even in his last moments, and at the end of his life approached the much-desired perfection he had yearned for his entire life, which became his only life goal. The novel depicts the complex journey of an artist searching for perfect beauty, for which he is willing to go beyond the boundaries of morality, for which he bets without...