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The Towner in Eastbourne, the town where he grew up, has become the major centre for his work, with a secondary focus at the Fry Art Gallery, Saffron Walden. I think this was because there was so much of Ross' life to cover and maybe it would have been improved if the author had focused on a particular section of his life and drawn it out with more colour and pathos. William Boyd is a must-read author for me; I’ve enjoyed his novels, short stories and non-fiction for many years, but it’s his three ‘full-life’ novels (The New Confessions, Any Human Heart, and now, The Romantic) that I love most. We see the challenge to English artists represented by Cezanne and Picasso, and the role played by museums and galleries in this period. Like a fine taxidermist, his craft creates such amusingly hyperreal results that you can sometimes forget what a grim business it is’ … William Boyd.
The Real and the Romantic by Frances Spalding review
It is a response to a need for a particular focus on key moments, sudden alliances and shifts in feeling that fed into the creativity of this period … Readers may detect a recurrent interest in the interconnectedness of artistic networks and an interest in bringing to the fore women’. At first it seems prodigious: all that mountain of ‘stuff’ we acquire, all the possessions, the bric-a-brac and copious documentation accumulated over the average life. The writing is a joy and Boyd has that skill of conjuring the sights and sounds of place and time that effortlessly transports the reader. The Financial Times and its journalism are subject to a self-regulation regime under the FT Editorial Code of Practice. In terms of literal representation, everything is wrong in scale, tonality and perspective, but this is Cubism for the masses, tuned to a point where a general public knew how to read the image and, one hopes, get a kick out of it.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. The author combines the august and measured commentary of the distinguished art historian with a gumshoe's curiosity . And it's good to see the genre is now getting some popular traction; The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo is a whole life novel.
The Real and the Romantic — English art in the interwar years
The historical events described are sketched not painted, and are with the exception of the 3rd Kandian War familar to me: Boyd's sketches offered nothing new cf. The differences are that Ross is naive (he is duped repeatedly) and his romantic nature seems to come down to a lack of self-awareness or willingness to think about his life, something he describes as 'following his heart'.Hit single “Wasn’t Looking” is a highlight, while previously unheard songs such as “Loveable” and “Putting Out Fires” display an impressive ability to exist on a track with minimal instrumental support, and still produce something enchantingly intricate and listenable. The Romantic is a faux biography, complete with footnotes, sketches and draft letters, of Cashel Greville Ross which recounts events in his life from his childhood in 19th century Ireland to his demise at the age of 82. A great page-turner, then, but also a fine reference book, which will, undoubtedly, be frequently pulled off the shelf for information and inspiration about that variegated array of artists – real and romantic – whose imagination lit up what is nowadays routinely considered to be the richest period in British art history. Having made a name for herself in 2010 under the moniker ‘Eliza Doolittle’ with radio-friendly hits such as “Pack Up”, she made the decision to eschew what had become a significant and successful project in favour of a new name and, importantly, a new sound. It’s like that for a reason – we find some things attractive, some things unattractive, but we’re all just here to mate.
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