Although some of William Faulkner's short fiction is beginning to receive the critical attention it has long deserved, those stories that resist ready categorization, particularly those that lie outside the realm of Yoknapatawpha County, remain neglected. "Artist at Home" is such a work. An enigmatic, ironic, and not wholly successful story, it nevertheless makes significant use of narrative techniques, characterizations, and important themes that recur throughout Faulkner's work. The story's concern with the relation of art to life, with contrasting modes of perception and action, and with the modern dissociation of art and experience make it an important work. "Artist at Home" is also a rare example of Faulkner's direct representation of the artist figure. As an integral part of a larger continuum, it presents both a culmination of Faulkner's early artistic portraits and an anticipation of larger and related themes of perception, responsibility, and action.
The outline of the story is deceptively simple, based upon a typical husband-wife-lover triangle and concerned with the reactions of each to what is apparently an adulterous situation. But the conventional plot is complicated by the presence of a biased, unreliable narrator and an emphasis upon unusually complex human and artistic dilemmas. (p. 393)
