By a surreal coincidence, the Frick Collection in New York opened an exhibition of 17th-century Dutch art last year, whose exhibits include The Goldfinch by Carel Fabritius, on the very day Donna Tartt published her novel The Goldfinch, which features the Fabritius painting.
Great news for the Frick, which apparently credits Tartt's fiction with drawing crowds to the show. The Goldfinch has had almost as many people crowding around it as Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring, which of course features in The Girl with a Pearl Earring.
But wait. I am not convinced that people flock to see these two paintings just because they are in bestsellers. There could be another reason.
Carel Fabritius is a lost genius. He was killed in a massive gunpowder explosion that wrecked 17th-century Delft, but from his remaining works he promised to match Vermeer and Rembrandt. His Goldfinch is one of the paintings that puts him in the company of the greatest painters ever. It anticipates 19th-century French art with its unpretentious attention to the beauty of everyday life.
And Vermeer's painting of an unknown young woman is quite compelling, too.
When it comes to great art, we are always in danger of overestimating not just our own response (it doesn't really matter if you don't "get" the Mona Lisa or David; I'd keep it to yourself) but the passing masquerade of contemporary culture. Do you really think Leonardo da Vinci needed Dan Brown to popularise his art? It was the other way round – Brown exploited Leonardo's good name to give The Da Vinci Code spurious appeal. Trash comes and goes, but great art endures.
So perhaps those people staring at a goldfinch are not twitching to the tune of cultural fashion. Perhaps – just perhaps – they are transfixed by the silent authority of a majestic painting.
