An Abstract Expressionist: A Study of Kurt Vonnegut’s Bluebeard

Abstract

The novel, Bluebeard (1987) presents a dialogue between abstract and representational painting, pointing out both the value and shortcomings of each school. It may end by imagining a type of art in which the usual boundaries separating the real and the artificial fall away; an art that is able to capture the complexity, sorrow, and beauty of life itself. On the other hand, it focuses on human’s cruelty to human. However, the novel also shows that even in the midst of war and death and sorrow the innate human impulse is a creative one. The novel discovers the human desire to create as it investigates the nature of new art itself. Vonnegut was mostly inspired by the grotesque prices paid for works of art during the past century. He thought not only of the mud-pies of art, but of children’s games as well.