A Handful of Arrows: Encounters with Art

From the acclaimed author of Optic Nerve and Portrait of an Unknown Lady, a rich and whimsical collection exploring the way works of art move both through the physical world and our cultural imaginations

One night in Buenos Aires, during the filming of his movie Tetro, Francis Ford Coppola told María Gainza, "An artist comes into the world with a quiver of golden arrows. He can shoot them all as a young man, as an adult, or even as an old man. He can also shoot them a few at a time, spaced out over the years. That would be ideal, but you know, the ideal is the enemy of the good."

A Handful of Arrows is full of gems and curiosities: in it, you'll find a watercolor by Cézanne stolen from a Buenos Aires museum, a walk along Thoreau's Walden Pond, the mysterious paintings of Bodhi Wind in Californian pools featured in Robert Altman's enigmatic Three Women, photographs rescued from a briefcase, evocative oil paintings by Catalan painter Nicolás Rubió of a French village where he spent the Spanish Civil War, the cosmopolitan life and memories of sculptor María Simón, the travels of painter Francis Hopkinson and his assistant Moon in Mexico, and a cursed painting by Titian.

Straddling the line between essay and narrative, María Gainza continues to explore new ways of understanding art and history, breaking down genre barriers and inviting readers into her kaleidoscopic world.