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Review
'Haycock manages the drama in this tale with such skill that his story unfolds like a well-plotted novel. Never before have the private vicissitudes in these artists' lives been made so real or their exuberance so vivid'
Frances Spalding, Daily Mail
'Haycock's narrative of this entangled, war-defined group is so strong that it often has the force of a novel, hard to put down . . . We should call for a joint exhibition of [their] work, to complement the moving portrayal of their lives in this engrossing and enjoyable book.'
Jenny Uglow, Guardian BOOK OF THE WEEK
'A lucid study of the lives behind the art . . . What gives Haycock's book its freshness is that, through skilful use of letters and memoirs left by his five subjects, he injects it with the anxiety, ambition, self-doubt and jealousy that possessors of youth and talent are fated to feel'
John Carey, Sunday Times
'What a fascinatingly tangled mess of human lives! Haycock tells the whole story engagingly and unpretentiously: the human conflicts, the clashes of ideas, and the terrible disruptions of war beneath it all.'
Independent
'A sad tale, wonderfully told… [Haycock] fades the many different narratives in and out with ease'
Country Life
'Boyd Haycock sets the story of Nash, Spencer, Dora Carrington, Mark Gertler and Richard Nevinson against the backdrop of Britain before and during the war, and he delineates it all with real vigour. Recommended.'
Herald
'There is something endlessly appealing about a group of artists behaving badly while simultaneously creating their best work...Depression, doubt, love triangles and the horrors of war all conspire against their ambitions, causing their fortunes to diverge wildly... [Haycock's] research provides rich context, with personal letters supplying detail to every squabble or concern'
Metro
'A vintage decade of early twentieth century British art, told in vivid and entertaining detail through the adventures of five highly gifted young painters ... I greatly enjoyed it'
Sir Michael Holroyd
'Truly fascinating from every angle - almost a work of art in itself'
Books Quarterly
'An extraordinary book. I read it avidly ... The familiar cast is handled in a quite new and original way. They have been made fresh and vulnerable once more, and their work re-evaluated, made new to us'
Ronald Blythe
'Haycock's narrative teems with colourful characters and dramatic detail.'
Simon May --*
Frances Spalding, Daily Mail
'Haycock's narrative of this entangled, war-defined group is so strong that it often has the force of a novel, hard to put down . . . We should call for a joint exhibition of [their] work, to complement the moving portrayal of their lives in this engrossing and enjoyable book.'
Jenny Uglow, Guardian BOOK OF THE WEEK
'A lucid study of the lives behind the art . . . What gives Haycock's book its freshness is that, through skilful use of letters and memoirs left by his five subjects, he injects it with the anxiety, ambition, self-doubt and jealousy that possessors of youth and talent are fated to feel'
John Carey, Sunday Times
'What a fascinatingly tangled mess of human lives! Haycock tells the whole story engagingly and unpretentiously: the human conflicts, the clashes of ideas, and the terrible disruptions of war beneath it all.'
Independent
'A sad tale, wonderfully told… [Haycock] fades the many different narratives in and out with ease'
Country Life
'Boyd Haycock sets the story of Nash, Spencer, Dora Carrington, Mark Gertler and Richard Nevinson against the backdrop of Britain before and during the war, and he delineates it all with real vigour. Recommended.'
Herald
'There is something endlessly appealing about a group of artists behaving badly while simultaneously creating their best work...Depression, doubt, love triangles and the horrors of war all conspire against their ambitions, causing their fortunes to diverge wildly... [Haycock's] research provides rich context, with personal letters supplying detail to every squabble or concern'
Metro
'A vintage decade of early twentieth century British art, told in vivid and entertaining detail through the adventures of five highly gifted young painters ... I greatly enjoyed it'
Sir Michael Holroyd
'Truly fascinating from every angle - almost a work of art in itself'
Books Quarterly
'An extraordinary book. I read it avidly ... The familiar cast is handled in a quite new and original way. They have been made fresh and vulnerable once more, and their work re-evaluated, made new to us'
Ronald Blythe
'Haycock's narrative teems with colourful characters and dramatic detail.'
Simon May --*
Product Description
Stanley Spencer, Paul Nash, Mark Gertler, Richard Nevinson and Dora Carrington were five of the most exciting, influential and innovative British artists of the twentieth century. From diverse backgrounds, they met in the years before the Great War as students at the Slade School of Art, where they formed part of what their teacher Henry Tonks described as the school's last 'crisis of brilliance'.
To the Bloomsbury Group critic Roger Fry they were 'les jeunes' -- the 'Young British Artists' of their day. As their talents evolved, they became Futurists, Vorticists and 'Bloomsberries', and befriended the leading writers and intellectuals of the time, from Virginia Woolf and Rupert Brooke to D. H. Lawrence and Katherine Mansfield. They led the way in fashion with their avant-garde clothes and haircuts; they slept with their models and with prostitutes; their tempestuous love affairs descended into obsession, murder and suicide. And as Europe plunged into the madness of the 'War to end Wars', they responded to its horror with all the passion and genius they could muster.
To the Bloomsbury Group critic Roger Fry they were 'les jeunes' -- the 'Young British Artists' of their day. As their talents evolved, they became Futurists, Vorticists and 'Bloomsberries', and befriended the leading writers and intellectuals of the time, from Virginia Woolf and Rupert Brooke to D. H. Lawrence and Katherine Mansfield. They led the way in fashion with their avant-garde clothes and haircuts; they slept with their models and with prostitutes; their tempestuous love affairs descended into obsession, murder and suicide. And as Europe plunged into the madness of the 'War to end Wars', they responded to its horror with all the passion and genius they could muster.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
18 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
A Crisis of Brilliance is a group biography of five outstandingly talented young artists whose lives intertwine in the period leading up to the First World War. The achievement of this biography is that it manages to keep each of their individual stories going, while never losing sight of the wider context - the Slade, artistic movements, the build-up to the War and contemporary social and sexual mores. The author has clearly done a huge amount of research but this book never feels heavy going - on the contrary, you can almost believe Haycock was there himself, witnessing events firsthand and describing what he saw with insight and sympathy. For me, Stanley Spencer was the character who came most vividly alive, though all are deftly captured. I have always been fascinated by this period, and by the young lives that were so distorted and damaged by the First World War, but A Crisis of Brilliance has given me a new layer of understanding. A wonderful read.
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
A CRISIS OF BRILLIANCE is one of the best biographies I've read. Haycock not only succeeds in bringing to life five fascinating and important painters at a time in their lives before they had achieved success or 'found themselves' artistically, he also illuminates, in elegant and accessible prose, a whole period and milieu - the years just before and during the Great War. We are first introduced to each artist individually, before their lives come together at the Slade School of Art in London, where they were all students under the famous drawing master Henry Tonks. The book divides roughly into two halves, with the first taking place before the war, and dealing with how the artists' friendships and relationships helped to form them as painters; in the second, Haycock traces the effect of the war on them and their art. Like all the best biographies, it manages to transcend its subject, telling a universal story about the artist's search for identity, and the struggle to find an adequate response to the great upheavals and traumas of his or her time: some of the most interesting and moving passages concern the very different personal and aesthetic reactions of the five artists to the war. Very highly recommended, and perhaps not just to those already interested in these particular artists.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Although I studied Art History at A level over twenty years ago, I have read very little on the subject since. Given to me by a friend, A Crisis of Brilliance has re-sparked that old interest. This is testimony largely to Haycock's approach. The book is no fictionalised biography, but it reads almost as entertainingly. We follow five Slade artists through their most formative years, all their lives to some greater or lesser degree intertwined; but, as if the drama of their relationships and ambitions wasn't enough, this is played out against the backdrop of WWI. Haycock contextualises the drama wonderfully, vividly conveying a sense of the period out of the personal.
My one criticism is that I wanted to see more of the paintings written about. That said, since a sad scarcity of them in the book itself has got me planning a visit to The Imperial War Museum, I don't suppose that should be considered too great a failing!
20th century English artists weren't on the A level syllabus when I studied; if they are now - in fact, even if they're not! - then this is just the kind of book to draw students into the subject. It reads like a superior soap opera. Brilliant.
My one criticism is that I wanted to see more of the paintings written about. That said, since a sad scarcity of them in the book itself has got me planning a visit to The Imperial War Museum, I don't suppose that should be considered too great a failing!
20th century English artists weren't on the A level syllabus when I studied; if they are now - in fact, even if they're not! - then this is just the kind of book to draw students into the subject. It reads like a superior soap opera. Brilliant.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
A Terrific Read, but what of the Pictures?
I don't wish to rebut the other comments about this book - it was due to them that I bought it. However, the book's focus is entirely on the lives of the artists to the exclusion... Read more
Published 7 days ago by Christopher H
brilliant
a book about artists and the slade at the time of the first world war which reads like anovel and grips from first page to last
Published 1 month ago by prawn
An exemplary 'group biography'
Biographies of famous individuals are published by the lorry load- some are carefully written, based on a selection of source material and a 'reading' or angle on the subject;... Read more
Published 6 months ago by DN PERKS
A Crisis of Brilliance
I thought this book was a great read giving illuminating details of so many well known and highly rated SLADE students in the pre first WW1 period and in particular the... Read more
Published 6 months ago by jillian may
Brilliant
A Crisis of Brilliance is a lovely book. The lives of five artists who were all at the Slade together are interleaved against a background of the social norms of a time long lost. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Jane M Hogg
Brilliance with the shine taken off
I have to agree with Lissie. The style of this book makes it turgid. Too much bland description, paragraphs that you get to the end of thinking "what point was being made there? Read more
Published 14 months ago by MCx
A fantastic book.
It started with a volunteer bringing this book into the gallery where I work. I got hold of a copy and read it in under a week. Read more
Published 17 months ago by Mintymin
A crisis of brilliance
I highly recommend this book. It deals with the time that Spencer, Gertler, Nevison and Carrington spent at the Slade and the years afterwards. Read more
Published 17 months ago by C. Dolan
Disappointing
Somehow makes what must have been an exciting time to be an artist, dull. Too many references to turgid contemporary quotes & detailed descriptions of relationships on a daily if... Read more
Published 18 months ago by E. Macfarlane
A delight
I couldn't put this down. DH re-animates his subjects convincingly and compellingly. The story of these colourful intertwined lives is wholly engaging. Read more
Published 23 months ago by Lou Galvin
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