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Thunderclap
- Author
- Laura Cumming
- Narrator
- Laura Cumming
- Publisher
- Random House
- Publish Date
- 6 July 2023
- Run Time
- 7 hours 40 minutes
- Format
- Audiobook
- Rating
- 4.0 (1 review)
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What to expect
Brought to you by Penguin.
'We see with everything that we are'
On the morning of 12 October 1654, in the Dutch city of Delft, a sudden explosion was followed by a thunderclap that could be heard more than seventy miles away. Carel Fabritius - now known across the world for his exquisite painting, The Goldfinch - had been at work in his studio. He, along with many others, would not survive the day.
In Thunderclap, Laura Cumming reveals her passion for the art of the Dutch Golden Age and her determination to lift up the reputation of Fabritius. She reveals the Netherlands, where - wandering the narrow streets of Amsterdam, driving across the flatlands, or pausing at a quiet waterfront - she encounters the rich reality behind the shining beauty of Vermeer and Rembrandt, Hals and de Hooch. She shares too her relationship with her father, the Scottish artist James Cumming, who had his own deep connection to Dutch painting, and who taught her about colour, light and the rewards of looking deeply.
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, a sudden clarity of sight. This is also a book about the precariousness of human life - the way it may be snatched from us in an instant. What can art do to sustain us? The work that survives tells its own compelling story in these pages.
_____________________
From the Sunday Times-bestselling author of On Chapel Sands, shortlisted for the Costa Prize for Biography. Praise for On Chapel Sands:
'Cumming skilfully withholds key twists in the tale, revealing them at just the right moment' The Times
'Outstanding . . . A peerless detective story that keeps you guessing to the end' Sunday Times
Praise for The Vanishing Man, winner of the James Tait Black Prize:
'Superb and original' Sunday Times
'Sumptuous . . . A gleaming work of someone at the peak of her craft' New York Times
©2023 Laura Cumming (P)2023 Penguin Audio
Critics Review
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A book that often borders on the sublime in its sentiment and beauty
Sunday Times
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This is an extraordinary book, full of beauty and feeling and immediacy and depth (and impressive detective work)...Thunderclap is a work of genius
India Knight
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One of the most captivating books I have ever read… Delightful, intimate, and dotted with beautiful art. A wonderful read (or a great present) for anyone who loves stories and art
Nina Stibbe
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Cumming is a word-painter ... When something fascinates Laura Cumming, she makes sure, with her beguiling prose, that we too are caught up in her fascination
The Times
See more reviews See fewer reviews
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Cumming clearly loves these paintings, and by weaving together vivid evocations of ones that particularly move her with brief biographies of the men and women who painted them, she invites us to share that love
New York Times
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Exquisite... [Cumming's] pages are themselves lovely exercises in poetic vision and stay with you long after you finish
Guardian
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[A] lustrous meditation on the lives and after-lives of artists ... with a novelist's pace, a critic's eye, a daughter's heart
Financial Times
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A superb tribute to the masterpieces of the Dutch Golden Age, and the father who taught her how to see them ... In asking why we return to paintings across decades and centuries, this book taught me to see anew
Telegraph
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[A] fascinating amalgam of insightful art appreciation and a haunting personal story
Sunday Times, *Books of the Year*
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An intriguing, ambitious and tender blend of art history and personal memoir, this beautifully illustrated book is one to read and re-read
Daily Mail, *Books of the Year*
User Reviews
Book 4.0
Narration 5.0
- No written reviews yet.
Details
- Author
- Laura Cumming
- Narrator
- Laura Cumming
- Duration
- 7 hours 40 minutes
- Release Date
- 6 July 2023
- ISBN
- 9781529903720
- Format
- Audiobook
- Publisher
- Random House
- Genre
- Memoirs, Autobiography: writers, History of art, Theory of art
- Rating
- 4.0(1 review)
- Narration
- 5.0(1 review)
Synopsis
Brought to you by Penguin.'We see with everything that we are'On the morning of 12 October 1654, in the Dutch city of Delft, a sudden explosion was followed by a thunderclap that could be heard more than seventy miles away. Carel Fabritius - now known across the world for his exquisite painting, The Goldfinch - had been at work in his studio. He, along with many others, would not survive the day.In Thunderclap, Laura Cumming reveals her passion for the art of the Dutch Golden Age and her determination to lift up the reputation of Fabritius. She reveals the Netherlands, where - wandering the narrow streets of Amsterdam, driving across the flatlands, or pausing at a quiet waterfront - she encounters the rich reality behind the shining beauty of Vermeer and Rembrandt, Hals and de Hooch. She shares too her relationship with her father, the Scottish artist James Cumming, who had his own deep connection to Dutch painting, and who taught her about colour, light and the rewards of looking deeply.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, a sudden clarity of sight. This is also a book about the precariousness of human life - the way it may be snatched from us in an instant. What can art do to sustain us? The work that survives tells its own compelling story in these pages._____________________From the Sunday Times-bestselling author of On Chapel Sands, shortlisted for the Costa Prize for Biography. Praise for On Chapel Sands:'Cumming skilfully withholds key twists in the tale, revealing them at just the right moment' The Times'Outstanding . . . A peerless detective story that keeps you guessing to the end' Sunday TimesPraise for The Vanishing Man, winner of the James Tait Black Prize:'Superb and original' Sunday Times'Sumptuous . . . A gleaming work of someone at the peak of her craft' New York Times©2023 Laura Cumming (P)2023 Penguin Audio
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