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

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Wonderland Eliza On Sex, Her New Album, And Taking Back Control | Wonderland

All biography is fiction, but fiction that has to fit the documented facts.’ - Donald Rayfield, Anton Chekhov: A Life. Boyd spent eight years in academia, during which time his first film, Good and Bad at Games, was made. When he was offered a college lecturership, which would mean spending more time teaching, he was forced to choose between teaching and writing. Frances Spalding's beautifully illustrated history reveals the hidden undercurrents that electrified the work of 1920s and 1930s artists … The author combines the august and measured commentary of the distinguished art historian with a gumshoe’s curiosity … This is a weighty and beautifully illustrated addition to the scholarship of its period' 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. 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.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. 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. 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. The second of William Boyd's 'whole life' works I have read, following on from Any Human Heart, which is one of the best books I've read in recent years. This amply illustrated volume is a gripping read whether for new collectors looking for tips, art lover or expert'

romantic : the real life of Cashel Greville Ross : a novel The romantic : the real life of Cashel Greville Ross : a novel

A really interesting overview outlining trends and movements in English art , but with a “jerky” style, as if sections about particular artists or works have been “dropped” into the more unified narrative. 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. Within his 80+ year lifespan, Cashel Greville Ross will fight at Waterloo where Napoleon made his last stand…enter the inner circle of Percy Shelley, his wife Mary Shelley, and the legendary Lord Byron…set out in search of the source of the Nile where he will meet up with the famed explorer Sir Richard Francis Burton and the duplicitous John Hanning Speke..and become inadvertently involved in the smuggling of Greek antiquities.

Veteran biographer Frances Spalding, known for her insightful books on the early British Modernists Vanessa Bell, Duncan Grant and Roger Fry, turns her penetrating gaze on the interwar years' I was 17 when I got signed and swooped up into the industry side of things. It was really fun and exciting, you know; we were hustling, we were doing this pop thing. But, I always found myself coming head to head with them, and feeling like I wasn’t being true to myself in one way or another. In the end it wasn’t for me, I’m too controlling, and I want to be able to make music the way I want to do it.”

The Real and the Romantic: English Art Between Two World Wars The Real and the Romantic: English Art Between Two World Wars

The truth behind Eliza’s insistence that she is better off now is clear to see in her music, the proof being very much in the pudding with her new album, A Real Romantic. This is nine songs of smoky R’n’B performed in the basement of a Camden bar, of jazzy beats and blurry vocals, a patchwork collage of living and loving in London, the city where Eliza was born and bred. “I see people come from other places and they’re culturally overwhelmed by London”, she explains, “it’s addictive, it’s a special special city and nothing can replace it.”Ross is a headstrong and an impulsive character, so his reaction to a situation or an idea is to rush into action. Often this means that his excitement or simply following his gut-feel can end up pushing him in some unpredictable directions. Sometimes this works in his favour but it’s a trait that also causes him much regret and angst throughout his life. A rover by nature, he travels to mainland Europe, Asia, Africa and America as his various schemes and his travails play out. Travel and communications being what they were in the 19th Century it could take him months to reach a destination or even to get a message to someone in another continent. In consequence, his life is complicated, with a tendency for loose ends to be created. 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'

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