The Goldfinch is a monument to art and beauty. It portrays art as what gives life meaning, particularly for people in the depths of despair. The novel’s protagonist, Theo Decker, comes to hold this view from his art-loving mother, Audrey. Whereas life is short, tragic, and cruel, art is a powerful (and in some ways eternal) source of meaning. Indeed, the novel shows that through being connected to art, humans can achieve a taste of immortality. At the same time, the novel also shows that not everyone is willing or able to appreciate art, and some people appreciate it for the wrong reasons. Art can provide a transcendent sense of meaning, but only if it is valued for itself, rather than for the wealth or status it confers.
In The Goldfinch, art is not just an ornament or addition to life; it is the single most important part of existence. This is primarily demonstrated by the fact that the whole plot is driven by an artwork: the titular painting The Goldfinch. After Theo is caught up in a terrorist attack at the Met, he steals this painting, following the instructions of a dying man (Welty). Theo secretly keeps the painting, feeling both wracked with guilt and fear that his crime will be found out and comforted by its existence, both as a remarkable work in itself and as something that keeps him connected to his mother. The painting (and Theo’s secretive concealment of it) drives the plot forward. It adds purpose and meaning to Theo’s life, as he observes when he states: “The painting was the secret that raised me above the surface of life and enabled me to know who I am.”
The Goldfinch is one of few surviving works by the Dutch master Carel Fabritius, who was himself killed in an explosion that destroyed most of his artworks. The parallel between this explosion and the explosion that takes place at the Met highlights how works of art are in constant danger. (Indeed, the fact that the Met was the target of a terrorist attack serves as a further reminder that art is not neutral, apolitical, or insignificant.) Theo and other characters position themselves as people dedicating themselves to saving and preserving art from the threats posed by the world. Theo argues that in doing so, they make their own lives meaningful. Dedicating oneself to art is portrayed as a morally pure and noble pursuit, and a way of forming a connection to the community of art lovers who have existed across human history. For Theo in particular, it is also a way to feel close to Audrey after her death.
At the end of the book Theo says (of the painting), “Insofar as it is immortal (and it is) I have a small, bright, immutable part in that immorality.” Theo’s belief that art and beauty are immortal where humans aren’t originates with Audrey. Before she dies, she observes to Theo, “People die, sure […] But it’s so heartbreaking and unnecessary how we lose things” (she is specifically referring to “things” like artworks). Later, this sentiment is repeated by Hobie, Theo’s guardian, who is a highly-skilled restorer of antiques. Writing a letter to Theo, he notes, “When we are sad—at least I am like this—it can be comforting to cling to familiar objects, to the things that don’t change.” Both Audrey and Hobie make explicitly clear that the value of art lies in the way its meaning transcends time.
Of course, the idea that art is a way to access immortality is especially appealing for Theo, because his whole life is colored by losing his mother when he is a young child. Many other characters in the novel also experience the death of a loved one, and for this reason immortality is appealing to them, too. In this sense, the novel reverses the commonly-expressed view that material objects are frivolous, whereas other aspects of life (love, truth, faith) are more important because they are eternal. The novel suggests that it is in fact art and other beautiful objects that are eternal, whereas something like love is always going to be tainted by loss. This is not to say that artworks themselves cannot be lost or destroyed—indeed, this almost happens to The Goldfinch—but that the meaning that art represents transcends time and does not rely on the survival of any single work.
Yet while emphasizing the importance of art, Tartt also shows that not everyone values art for the right reasons. For example, the novel is attentive to the many ways in which art and beauty can be cordoned off as the reserve of wealthy people. One way in which this is shown is through the astronomical prices of many of the artworks that feature in the narrative, such as a Rembrandt rescued by art police that is valued at $40 million. Meanwhile, through his work at Hobie’s antique shop, Theo witnesses different kinds of extremely wealthy people who buy antiques. Some of these people (usually those who come from multiple generations of wealth) have extensive knowledge about art, antiques, and other aspects of elite culture, while others don’t seem to know or care much about beautiful things themselves, but only want to possess them as status symbols. Perhaps the most extreme example of people who value art for the wrong reasons are the gangsters who use art as collateral. Like the wealthy people who collect antiques without really caring about them, these gangsters only care about art’s monetary value, rather than being able to see the transcendent meaning that makes works such as The Goldfinch “priceless.”
Having demonstrated the ways in which art makes life meaningful, the novel concludes by heroizing those who dedicate themselves to preserving and appreciating art. It frames this as an almost sacred, morally purifying pursuit, and suggests it is a good antidote to the cruelty and suffering that define mortal life. Ultimately, the fact that there are people who value art for the wrong reasons cannot counter the positive power of art to transform people’s lives.
Related Themes from Other Texts
The Value of Art and Beauty ThemeTracker
The Value of Art and Beauty Quotes in The Goldfinch
“People die, sure,” my mother was saying. “But it’s so heartbreaking and unnecessary how we lose things. From pure carelessness. Fires, wars. The Parthenon, used as a munitions storehouse. I guess that anything we manage to save from history is a miracle.”
Its weighty, antiquated quality, its mixture of sobriety and brightness, were strangely comforting; if I fixed my attention on it intensely enough, it had a strange power to anchor me in my drifting state and shut out the world around me, but for all that, I really didn’t want to think about where it had come from.
I learned about veneers and gilding, what a mortise and tenon was, the difference between ebonized wood and true ebony, between Newport and Connecticut and Philadelphia crest rails, how the blocky design and close-cropped top of one Chippendale bureau rendered it inferior to another bracket-foot of the same vintage with its fluted quarter columns and what he liked to call the “exalted” proportions of the drawer ratio.
It would be much easier to explain to Hobie how I had happened to take the painting out of the museum in the first place. That it was a mistake, sort of. That I’d been following Welty’s instructions; that I’d had a concussion. That I hadn’t fully considered what I was doing. That I hadn’t meant to let it sit around so long. Yet in my homeless limbo, it seemed insane to step up and admit to what I knew a lot of people were going to view as very serious wrongdoing.
When we are sad—at least I am like this—it can be comforting to cling to familiar objects, to the things that don’t change.
One commentator, in London, had mentioned my painting in the same breath with the recovered Rembrandt:… has drawn attention to more valuable works still missing, most particularly Carel Fabritius’s Goldfinch of 1654, unique in the annals of art and therefore priceless…
Anything too evenly worn was a dead giveaway; real age, as I came to see from the genuine pieces that passed through my hands, was variable, crooked, capricious, singing her and sullen there, warm asymmetrical streaks on a rosewood cabinet from where a slant of sun had struck it while the other side was as dark as the day it was cut.
I sold heavily altered or outright reconstructed pieces as original; if—out of the dim light of Hobart and Blackwell—the collector got the piece home and noticed something amiss […] then I—grieved at the mix-up, while stalwart in my conviction that the piece was genuine—gallantly offered to buy it back at ten per cent more than the collector had paid, under the conditions and terms of ordinary sale. This made me look like a goody guy, confident in the integrity of my product and willing to go to absurd length to ensure my client’s happiness, and more often than not the client was mollified and decided to keep the piece. But on the three or four occasions when distrustful collectors had taken me up on my offer: what the collector didn’t realize was that the fake—passing from his possession to mine, at a price indicative of its apparent worth—had overnight acquired a provenance. Once it was back in my hands, I had a paper trail to show it had once been part of the illustrious So-and-So collection […] I could then turn around and sell it again for sometimes twice what I’d bought it back for.
It was the secret no one told you, the thing you had to learn for yourself: viz. that in the antiques trade there was really no such thing as a “correct” price. Objective value—list value—was meaningless. If a customer came in clueless with money in hand (as most of them did) it didn’t matter what the books said, what the experts said, what similar items at Christie’s had recently gone for. An object—any object—was worth whatever you could get somebody to pay for it.
I did know. Because if possible to paint fakes that look like that? Las Vegas would be the most beautiful city in the history of earth! Anyway—so funny! Here I am, so proudly teaching you to steal apples and candy from the magazine, while you have stolen world masterpiece of art.
Because this is closed circle, you understand? Horst is right on the money about that. No one is going to buy this painting. Impossible to sell. But—black market, barter currency? Can be traded back and forth forever! Valuable, portable. Hotel rooms—going back and forth. Drugs, arms, girls, cash—whatever you like.
Because—they are saying, ‘one of great art recoveries of history.’ And this is the part I hoped would please you—maybe not who knows, but I hoped. Museum masterworks, returned to public ownership! Stewardship of cultural treasure! Great joy! All the angels are singing! But it would never have happened, if not for you.
Where’s the nobility in patching up a bunch of old tables and chairs? Corrosive to the soul, quite possibly. I’ve seen too many estates not to know that. Idolatry! Caring too much for objects can destroy you. Only—if you care for a thing enough, it takes on a life of its own, doesn’t it? And isn’t the whole point of things—beautiful things—that they connect you to some larger beauty? Those first images that crack your heart wide open and you spend the rest of your life chasing, or trying to recapture, in one way or another?
Insofar as it is immortal (and it is) I have a small, bright, immutable part in the immortality. It exists; and it keeps on existing. And I add my own love to the history of people who have loved beautiful things, and looked out for them, and pulled them from the fire, and sought them when they were lost, and tried to preserve them and save them while passing them along literally from hand to hand, singing out brilliantly from the wreck of time to the next generation of lovers, and the next.
