"Koen Brams has selected more than 280 biographies of artists invented by writers and existing in the space of literary fiction. Covering a period extending from 1605 to today, this encyclopedia gathers together fictional characters such as Frenhofer (Honoré de Balzac), Elstir (Marcel Proust), Basil Hallward (Oscar Wilde), Heinrich Kürz (Georges Perec), Thomas Hudson (Ernest Hemingway), Vsevolod Romanov (Vladimir Nabokov), Clara Glencairn de Figueroa (Jorge Luis Borges), Sabina (Milan Kundera), and Aurora Zogoiby (Salman Rushdie). It offers a first 'parallel' history of art since the 17th century, drawn by the most influential writers of the past centuries--a history that is not only imprinted on our cultural memory and that has inspired 'real artists,' but one that is also reflected back in what we call reality"--back cover, v. 1. "'The addition' is a separate compilation of autonomous 'responses' towards the encyclopedic book whose content remains descriptive and informative. Serving as a collection of artistic contribution, The addition cryptically unfolds and (de)constructs the ways in which fiction manifests itself within language and artistic production"--back cover, v. 2.