The Real and the Romantic: English Art Between Two World Wars – A Times Best Art Book of 2022

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The Real and the Romantic: English Art Between Two World Wars – A Times Best Art Book of 2022

The Real and the Romantic: English Art Between Two World Wars – A Times Best Art Book of 2022

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The Real and the Romantic' is a valuable if somewhat impressionistic review of British art between the two world wars with a decent selection of illustrations and an easy style that makes it a pleasure to read. I suspect am also probably comparing it unfairly to the end of Logan Mountstuart in Any Human Heart (which I found really moving and actually left me a bit teary). Chapter 3 looks at movement in art, mentioning Sybil Andrews and Cyril Power, whose excellent joint biography by Jenny Uglow I have recently read. There is also mention of Ravilious and significant discussion of Cedric Morris and Frances Hodgkins. Bookended by the intensity of commemoration that followed World War I and by a darkening of mood brought about by the foreshadowing of World War II, the decades between the wars saw the growing influence of modernism across British art and design. But as modernism reached a peak in the mid-1930s, artists were simultaneously reviving native traditions in modern terms and working with a renewed concern for place, memory, history, and particularity.

The Real and the Romantic — English art in the interwar years

Do not expect deep introspection. The purpose is not to wonder what drives Cashel or what he is thinking. Instead, the goal is to surrender to a hugely satisfying good yarn that follows one colorful character through his multiple iterations – son and brother, lover, soldier, farmer, debtor, best-selling writer, husband and father, world traveler (and Ivan Turgenev look-alike). The real-life people he encounters along this journey only heightens the fun. As i finished the book, I found myself thinking at first that the end - Ross's death - felt a tad underwhelming. On reflection, though, I think the manner and location of his demise were really appropriate, reflecting the nature of his life, somewhat rootless and geographically random. It was right that he went that way. Ross fights at the Battle of Waterloo and explores the world, meeting Byron and Shelley, brewing German beer in America and attempting to discover the source of the Nile.I’ve read a lot of William Boyd over the years (though not the complete seventeen novels that he’s now produced) and he’s the closest I’ve come to a comfort read. This latest work, for the first time, did feel a bit too much like a re-hash of earlier work. Boyd calls a number of his novels “whole life” stories, and Any Human Heart: The Intimate Journals of Logan Mountstuart is possibly the one most lauded, and the one early reviewers have compared to The Romantic. The writing is a joy and Boyd has that skill of conjuring the sights and sounds of place and time that effortlessly transports the reader. Though this is quite a lengthy book I just didn’t want it to end. Set against this refulgent blue surface are low-lying buildings of white coraline stone, interspersed with the vivid green of palm trees, tamarind and fig. Closer to shore, a mephitic stink becomes more evident – rotting fish and putrid mud, charcoal smoke and human filth, overlaid by the cloying perfume of cloves. The smell of Zanzibar. One hundred thousand people live on this small island, crammed into the noisome, narrow alleyways of the old town, and their effluvia is everywhere. The fictional biography of Cashel Greville Ross takes us from his beginnings as an orphan living with his aunt in rural Ireland through the many adventures and loves in his life. Disappointing. A flat and unconvincing story. The protagonist makes a long series of poor judgements and is somewhat impassively buffeted from one catastrophy to another, largely avoidable had be been less naive. He is supported by an inexplicably loyal character with quite ludicrous (overly convenient) talents, designed simply to rescue Cashel at every turn. The love interest who purportedly sustains the hero through his tribulations is utterly unconvincing, cold and manipulative - only he won't let himself see it.

Romantic by William Boyd review – a swashbuckling The Romantic by William Boyd review – a swashbuckling

This amply illustrated volume is a gripping read whether for new collectors looking for tips, art lover or expert' A wonderful romp through the 19th century, mixing fact and fiction seamlessly. Our hero manages to, amongst other things, get involved in the Battle of Waterloo, mix with Byron and Shelley in Italy, help find the source of the River Nile, become the author of best selling books and have an 60 year love affair. If you do nothing, you will be auto-enrolled in our premium digital monthly subscription plan and retain complete access for 65 € per month. The 21st century has seen a surge of interest in English art of the interwar years. Women artists, such as Winifred Knights, Frances Hodgkins and Evelyn Dunbar, have come to the fore, while familiar names – Paul Nash, Eric Ravilious and Stanley Spencer – have reached new audiences. High-profile exhibitions have attracted recordbreaking visitor numbers and challenged received opinion. In The Real and the Romantic, Frances Spalding, one of Britain’s leading art historians and critics, takes a fresh and timely look at this rich period in English art. Cashel Greville Ross, the hero of William Boyd’s new novel The Romantic, is a man who does plenty of wandering and whose path through life changes direction many times. Born in Ireland in 1799, he lives through some of the major events of the 19th century and becomes a soldier, a writer, a farmer and an explorer – though not all at the same time. He is present on the battlefield of Waterloo, befriends Byron and Shelley in Pisa and travels through Africa in search of the source of the Nile.He is to become a commissioned army officer in the East India Company in Madras, but taking a moral stand in Ceylon has him return to explore Europe, and to write about his travels. In Pisa and Lerici, he meets and gets to know Mary and Percy Shelley, Lord 'Albe' Byron and Claire Clairemont, becoming privy to the tangle of intrigue and rivalries within the group. He encounters the love of his life in Ravenna, unavailable, a passionate love which will endure, despite barely seeing each other through the years once he leaves Italy. Whilst becoming a successful author, he is swindled by his publisher, which lands him in debtor's prison, only to embark on a new life in America on release, then go on a expedition to find the source of the Nile, there he meets Richard Burton. He is to get caught up in a Greek antiquities scandal as the Nicaraguan Consul in Trieste, this puts hims in such danger that he goes in hiding in Venice. She is also consistently fair-minded. She manages to avoid the current tendency to over-privilege the minor artist to suit the obsessive need for diversity whilst still opening the doors of perception to some neglected artists and, of course, in a balanced way, to the female contribution. Frances Spalding is an art historian, critic and leading authority on 20th-century British art. Her books include acclaimed biographies of Roger Fry, Vanessa Bell, John Minton, Duncan Grant, Gwen Raverat and John and Myfanwy Piper, as well as a biography of the poet Stevie Smith. She is Emeritus Fellow of Clare Hall, Cambridge, a Fellow of the Royal



  • Fruugo ID: 258392218-563234582
  • EAN: 764486781913
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