Thunderclap: From the Sunday Times bestselling author of On Chapel Sands
£19.00£23.80 (-20%)
‘One of the most captivating books I have ever read … A wonderful read (or a great present) for anyone who loves stories and art’ Nina Stibbe, author of Love, Nina
A beautifully illustrated new memoir of a life in art, a father and daughter, and what a shared love of a painting can come to mean.
‘We see with everything that we are’
On the morning of 12 October 1654, a gunpowder explosion devastated the Dutch city of Delft. The thunderclap was heard over seventy miles away. Among the fatalities was the painter Carel Fabritius, dead at thirty-two, leaving only his haunting masterpiece The Goldfinch and barely a dozen known paintings. The explosion that killed him also buried his reputation, along with answers to the mysteries of his life and career.
What happened to Fabritius before and after this disaster is just one of the discoveries in a book that explores the relationship between art and life, interweaving the lives of Laura Cumming, her Scottish painter father, who also died too young, and the great artists of the Dutch Golden Age.
This is a book about what a picture may come to mean: how it can enter your life and change your thinking in a thunderclap. Beautifully illustrated in full colour, this is the perfect Christmas gift for art lovers.
‘A book that often borders on the sublime’ Sunday Times
‘No one writes art like Laura Cumming’ Philip Hoare
‘I will never look at any painting in the same way again’ Polly Morland
‘Superb … this book taught me to see anew’ Daily Telegraph
‘Her pages stay with you long after you finish’ Simon Schama
‘Brilliant … rush out and buy it’ Edmund de Waal, author of The Hare with Amber Eyes
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Additional information
| Publisher | Chatto & Windus, 1st edition (6 July 2023) |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Hardcover | 272 pages |
| ISBN-10 | 1784744522 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1784744526 |
| Dimensions | 15.3 x 2.7 x 21.4 cm |
by Yorkshireboy
What is this book about? To be honest, I’m not really sure but – in truth – it doesn’t matter a bit. Laura’s freestyle writing dovetails perfectly with her subject matter; the complex, fascinating, multi textured world of 17thC Dutch art, all rotating around the elusive legend of Fabritius. Already I am planning a trip to Delft, so Laura’s spell has been successful. Recommended IF you like art.
by Amazon Customer
A beautifully constructed and lyrical evocation of the greatest outpouring of superb art in history.
Part memoir, part dissertation it weaves Laura’s own memories of her artist father with what little we know about another painter, Carel Fabritius, who left a tiny oeuvre of work before dying in a bizarre explosion in Delft in 1654. The sense of life’s cut short in random and inexplicable ways is palpable and moving.
Sadly, I can’t give five stars because Laura omits any discussion of Pieter Claesz and Willem Claesz Heda, the two greatest still life painters of this period, but that is a minor cavil to set against a remarkable book.
by Paul Adams
Another brave book by the author unafraid to try and understand life this time through Dutch painting. Wonderful, read it.
by David W.
Just wonderful and full of such a range of insight. I identified with so much that enriched me. Thank you
by Adrian
I bought this book because I understood from the Literary Review that it was about understanding Dutch paintings – Vermeer etc. I know they are very rated, but for me it is well painted interiors, well painted landscapes. I recognise that they are well-painted, but they said nothing.
In contrast, Holbein portraits tell me masses about the Tudor Court, or Goya’s paintings about that arrogant aristocratic world.
What is this book about? An obscure Dutch painter of the Vermeer period? The author’s father? Short-sightedness of Dr Johnson? Colour-blindness? I get the impression the author, who is a journalist, has pieced together a series of proposed articles. But it ends in a hotch-potch, and I am no more able now to appreciate Dutch paintings (Rembrandt, of course, excepted).
by Puerto Banús
First class analysis of the work of certain Dutch masters, compiled with care and rigour but presented with an engaging personal slant by the author. Really great.
by Mrs. K. A. Wheatley
A glorious meditation on Dutch art in general, Carel Fabritius in particular and a loving homage to Cumming’s artist father. This book follows lots of different strands and holds them all together beautifully. Fabritius is best known for his work The Goldfinch. Very few of his other paintings exist and little is known about his life and work, except that he died in the Thunderclap of the title, when a huge explosion destroyed much of Delft. Cumming is excellent at summoning ghosts of Fabritius and her father among others. She is also excellent at writing about her passion for painting and what it means to her. I hate Dutch art for the most part, but her writing, her enthusiasm and her ability to translate what she sees and feels is so exquisite it has made me look and think again.
by Quercus
Some weeks ago, when I saw the picture of Fabritius’s goldfinch in the observer, I recalled seeing this picture many years ago. Now seeing it again, I could marvel at it afresh. But had I seen this picture before? Or did I just identify with its super sense of presence that hits you like lightning bolt? Sometimes you can see flashes of magic in a picture and here is one such case. Why is this image so amazing?
Well, this book certainly made me understand why. Laura’s ability to transcend the two-dimensional painting and describe art through space and time is astounding. Laura’s childhood experiences in Holland are related like sequences from a dream. Like an extended trip to Holland in your mind’s eye.
The most powerful line in this book that stands out to me, is when Laura is in the National Gallery at night with a film crew looking at a Rembrant and she states: – “But in the darkened gallery behind us was the self-portrait of Carel Fabritius, outdoors against the sky. We did not think of him, the other man in the room next door.”
Many interesting Dutch paintings are discussed and I thought the examples of paintings by Adriaen Coorte almost surrealist in their nature.
I can’t help noticing that the picture of Laura on the inside sleeve at the back of the book, almost mirrors Rembrandt’s drawing of Saskia (as shown on page 56), but without the hat and flower.
I would be surprised if this book did not win an award.
Thank you, Laura Cumming, for writing such a beautiful and wonderful book.
Clive Heritage-Tilley