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

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This is a slight frustration because, when she does look more deeply into the relationship between art and culture (as in the effect of war and immediate post-war depression and, more cursorily, the turn to politics in the late 1930s), she is very good indeed. As is inevitable in an overview of a period such as this, I kept feeling that the analysis of artist’s work was too fleeting, and it was also sometimes difficult to follow an artist’s inclusion in a particular chapter rather than another. This made it an engaging read, and renewed my intention of reading monographs on more of the artists discussed, so I am glad to have read this book. However, although more limited in scope, I found both Sybil Cyril: Cyril Power and Sybil Andrews, Artists Together, 1920–1943 by Jenny Uglow and Romantic Moderns: English Writers, Artists and the Imagination from Virginia Woolf to John Piper by Alexandra Harris more satisfying reads. Engaging and illuminating … a perfect aid to those interested in the influences, painting methods and lives of well-known artists, but also anyone who wishes to discover less famous artists working in a variety of styles'

Romantic, by William Boyd - The Scotsman Book review: The Romantic, by William Boyd - The Scotsman

Wandering through Africa wasn’t that much different, in a sense, from wandering through London, or Paris, or Boston. You thought the road ahead was obvious and well marked but more often than not the destination you had so clearly in mind would never be reached. Never. Things got in the way. There were diversions, problems, changes of mind, changes of heart… The Romantic is certainly one of those. I absolutely adored this story and it goes up there as one of my books of the year. 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.Of Scottish descent, Boyd was born in Accra, Ghana on 7th March, 1952 and spent much of his early life there and in Nigeria where his mother was a teacher and his father, a doctor. Boyd was in Nigeria during the Biafran War, the brutal secessionist conflict which ran from 1967 to 1970 and it had a profound effect on him. The fictional biography is my favourite genre. I suppose that's why I somewhat surprisingly enjoyed reading Daniel Defoe. And it's good to see the genre is now getting some popular traction; The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is a whole life novel. But the first modern example I read was Boyd's Any Human Heart, a book which must be in my lifetime top ten. If I hadn't been so excited about Boyd writing another, set this time in the 19th century, I wouldn't be so disappointed now. Ugaz’s case is all too familiar in Peru, where powerful groups regularly use the courts to silence journalists by fabricating criminal allegations against them.’

The Real and the Romantic: English Art Between - Waterstones The Real and the Romantic: English Art Between - Waterstones

For cost savings, you can change your plan at any time online in the “Settings & Account” section. If you’d like to retain your premium access and save 20%, you can opt to pay annually at the end of the trial.This book confirms, however, that if Europe is often a matter of conscious movements and ideologies, the English do not take easily to them or to any committed step away from individual responses to materials and environment. Gayford on post-second world war art showed us much the same. All in all this is a thoroughly enjoyable, immensely readable book. It's not overlong as some fictional autobiographies can be and you get some very famous names thrown in for good measure as Cashel Greville Ross continues his adventures from Waterloo to the discovery of the source of the Nile.