I loved all the art talk. It took a long time however, to pull the story together but I liked that it wasn't predictable.
I'm not quite finished yet, but tThis appears to be one ginormous "Metaphor" stretched like canvas to the ripping point over the rickety frame of a character portrait. A portrait, that is, of the artist as a pathologically egocentric, arrogant, callous youth who, despite his dawning self-awareness...