From Big Bang to Big Brother in Fifteen Frantic Chapters
Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going? These questions form the title of an 1897 painting by the French artist Paul Gauguin. He knew he was pushing the limits of human knowledge by asking them. He also knew they are not new questions. Our ancestors began to ask them on the African savannah. The Roman poet Lucretius posed them in ......
The Ornamental Wilderness in the English Garden reinterprets the English formal garden of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries through the perspective of a typical feature of those gardens, the ornamental grove, called a wilderness. The wilderness became a prominent, indeed defining, feature of the formal gardens of this period. In ......
This ground-breaking publication provides a new view of the great Scottish artist Alan Davie (1920-2014), whose intensely physical gestural painting stood the staid post-war British art world on its head. In advance of a new Davie gallery in Hertford, the visually spectacular book argues that far from being an essentially historical figure, ......
On the first day of lockdown, Mary Collis decided to post a painting onto her Facebook page, suggesting she would ‘lift the
day’ during the forecast two-week lockdown. 245 days later she was still posting daily. This Facebook lockdown exhibition
became a daily source of inspiration and sanity for Mary and her followers, as they shared memories ......
In this first book to explore the entire history of triumphal arches, from their Roman origins to the present day, the Classicist and architectural historian Peter Howell describes arches through time, in terms of their cultural and historical significance. He also discusses the form of the arch in Renaissance painting and the rather surprising ......
In war, it is not just the knavish tricks of the enemy but also the home grown unfortunate occurrences that result in disasters. This book chronicles the circumstances surrounding an aging Panamanian freighter, the SS Capira, on her last voyage in convoys PQ 15, QP 13 and SC 97. During the period between November 1941 and September 1942 she ......
Greek Island Nature Diary is a lavish journal of highly detailed watercolours and accompanying pencil drawings of flora, fauna
and natural objects observed and collected during the author’s years living in Corfu and sailing the Ionian on her family’s
oceangoing catamaran.
This evocative diary is based on the author’s notes and sketches made in ......
Seven Artists in search of an Industrial Revolution in Britain
In seven linked essays, the author discusses paintings of industrial scenes by seven artists working in the period 1780-1830. Their unique and distinct responses to the subject matter reveal a surprisingly coherent message.