Tower and Town, September 2024 (view the full edition)Laura Cumming - ThunderclapThis is a beautifully written and informative memoir of Carel Fabritius, who was an artist of the Dutch Golden Age in the 17th century, and James Cumming, the author's father, also an artist. Both died prematurely - Fabritius on 12 October 1654, aged 32, in a gunpowder explosion that devastated Delft, leaving only his haunting masterpiece, The Goldfinch, and barely another dozen pictures. The explosion also buried his reputation, along with the mysteries of his life. Laura Cumming, chief art critic of the Observer, manages to uncover many of these and in doing so explores her own life, that of her painter father, and the lives of other Dutch Golden Age artists. Thunderclap: A Memoir of Art and Life and Sudden Death opens with an illustration of Fabritius's A View of Delft, With a Musical Instrument Seller's Stall, about which Laura reveals a wealth of detail. Throughout, she gives us fascinating snippets of information about other artists' pictures. If you were lucky enough to see the Vermeer exhibition, you will be enchanted by returning to a number of his pictures. Laura's father was also a magical figure - children would ask him to draw a circle, which he would do without taking his pencil off the paper, and then turn it into a peach or a diamond ring. He didn't have an easy life, teaching by day at the Edinburgh School of Art and painting at night. To quote from book's blurb: "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." Laura Cumming will paint pictures with words in the Town Hall at 4pm on Saturday 28 September. 
Credit Suki Dhanda 
Virginia Reekie |