Artists is a brilliant exploration of the world of art, past and present, and two of its contemporary practitioners. They are a father and son team, although ‘team’ is a misnomer, as the father is by far the more brilliant of the two, with an increasingly growing reputation to boot. The father’s role is more that of a tutor, lecturer and guide to his son as he explores both the surface as well as the deeper values of the fine arts and the workings of the minds–not least his own–that have created them. The resulting love and tension between father and son carries the novel forward into unexpected directions. It is through the son’s eyes that we experience this liberating as well as confining world, and his questions as to the ultimate value of art versus human relationships and the day to day realities of a life fully lived become the reader’s as well. The novel’s language is at once immediate and lyrical with the feel of alternating movements of a musical symphony.