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Review
"Alexandra Harris looks back at the early 20th century through a different lens in Romantic Moderns, a study of how English writers, painters, gardeners, architects, critics and composers imbued the artistic revolutions coming across the channel with a nostalgic sense of place."
--Longlisted for 2010 Guardian First Book Award.
`Brilliant ... it would be impossible to over-emphasise what a clever book Romantic Moderns is. ...not just an important book but a deeply pleasurable one, too' --The Guardian
`Thought-provoking, has shafts of originality, and ought to stimulate further research into a neglected period that is now on the edges of living memory' --The Spectator
`Harris's book teems with fascinating detail ... Well researched, wide-ranging and generously illustrated, the book contains many delights and surprises'
--The Daily Telegraph
'Alexandra Harris's brilliant, delightfully readable book is a revaluing and rescuing of much of the British art, writing and music of the 1930s' --The Financial Times
'The originality of Romantic Moderns is the extraordinary breadth of its focus ... it is this eclectic approach to cultural history ... that makes Romantic Moderns so convincing and a joy to read'
--The Sunday Times
'A spectacular debut by a gifted and versatile cultural historian ... A beautiful book; also, with its bucolic endpapers and its cornucopian illustrations, a beautiful piece of book' --Peter Conrad, The Observer
'Highly readable ... bears special resonance today' --Country Life
'A hugely enjoyable reassessment of a sadly neglected period' --RA Magazine
'A beautiful edition' --History Today
'Wonderfully well-written ... Alexandra Harris has caught brilliantly the legacy of the interwar years, and this glorious book marks an impressive debut which deserves all our congratulations'
--Birmingham Post
Thames & Hudson is delighted to announce that Romantic Moderns by Alexandra Harris has WON the GUARDIAN FIRST BOOK AWARD 2010!
-- Winner of 2010 Guardian First Book Award
'Wonderfully eloquent and illuminating ... [written] in language often as sinuous, graceful and colourful as the work of its subjects' --The Independent
'The only disappointing thing about Romantic Moderns is that it comes to an end' --The Times Higher Education Supplement
'I hugely admired [this book] ... beautifully written' --Charles Saumarez Smith, The Daily Telegraph
'Exceptionally well-written and deeply illuminating' --Andrew Motion, The Guardian
'Elegant in style and appearance ... satisfying and thoughtful ... and inspiring book'
--Art Quaterly
'I am mad for Romantic Moderns ... if, as I do, you like Eric Ravilious and Graham Sutherland, E. M. Forster and the Sitwells, this is the book for you.' --The New Statesman
'Highly eclectic and original... a book that makes you think freshly about the perennially puzzling question of what it means to be British.' --Martin Gayford, The Sunday Telegraph
'A brilliant piece of work that manages to be both comprehensive and coherent as it tells a compelling story about 20th-century English art' --Adam Foulds, The Guardian
'Alexandra Harris's groundbreaking book is a reminder of how important higher education is to literature' --Claire Armitstead, Literary Editor, The Guardian
'The joy of this book is its breadth, connecting areas as varied as the work of Beaton, Bauhaus emigres and garden design'
--Apollo
'Excellent ... makes one think again about what it is to be British' --The Chap
'Brilliantly researched and engrossing'
--Tribune
--Longlisted for 2010 Guardian First Book Award.
`Brilliant ... it would be impossible to over-emphasise what a clever book Romantic Moderns is. ...not just an important book but a deeply pleasurable one, too' --The Guardian
`Thought-provoking, has shafts of originality, and ought to stimulate further research into a neglected period that is now on the edges of living memory' --The Spectator
`Harris's book teems with fascinating detail ... Well researched, wide-ranging and generously illustrated, the book contains many delights and surprises'
--The Daily Telegraph
'Alexandra Harris's brilliant, delightfully readable book is a revaluing and rescuing of much of the British art, writing and music of the 1930s' --The Financial Times
'The originality of Romantic Moderns is the extraordinary breadth of its focus ... it is this eclectic approach to cultural history ... that makes Romantic Moderns so convincing and a joy to read'
--The Sunday Times
'A spectacular debut by a gifted and versatile cultural historian ... A beautiful book; also, with its bucolic endpapers and its cornucopian illustrations, a beautiful piece of book' --Peter Conrad, The Observer
'Highly readable ... bears special resonance today' --Country Life
'A hugely enjoyable reassessment of a sadly neglected period' --RA Magazine
'A beautiful edition' --History Today
'Wonderfully well-written ... Alexandra Harris has caught brilliantly the legacy of the interwar years, and this glorious book marks an impressive debut which deserves all our congratulations'
--Birmingham Post
Thames & Hudson is delighted to announce that Romantic Moderns by Alexandra Harris has WON the GUARDIAN FIRST BOOK AWARD 2010!
-- Winner of 2010 Guardian First Book Award
'Wonderfully eloquent and illuminating ... [written] in language often as sinuous, graceful and colourful as the work of its subjects' --The Independent
'The only disappointing thing about Romantic Moderns is that it comes to an end' --The Times Higher Education Supplement
'I hugely admired [this book] ... beautifully written' --Charles Saumarez Smith, The Daily Telegraph
'Exceptionally well-written and deeply illuminating' --Andrew Motion, The Guardian
'Elegant in style and appearance ... satisfying and thoughtful ... and inspiring book'
--Art Quaterly
'I am mad for Romantic Moderns ... if, as I do, you like Eric Ravilious and Graham Sutherland, E. M. Forster and the Sitwells, this is the book for you.' --The New Statesman
'Highly eclectic and original... a book that makes you think freshly about the perennially puzzling question of what it means to be British.' --Martin Gayford, The Sunday Telegraph
'A brilliant piece of work that manages to be both comprehensive and coherent as it tells a compelling story about 20th-century English art' --Adam Foulds, The Guardian
'Alexandra Harris's groundbreaking book is a reminder of how important higher education is to literature' --Claire Armitstead, Literary Editor, The Guardian
'The joy of this book is its breadth, connecting areas as varied as the work of Beaton, Bauhaus emigres and garden design'
--Apollo
'Excellent ... makes one think again about what it is to be British' --The Chap
'Brilliantly researched and engrossing'
--Tribune
Product Description
In this new and engaging study Alex Harris presents a confident case for the interest and importance of the English arts during the modern period. During the 1930s and 1940s, a rich network of cultural and personal encounters was the backdrop for a modern English renaissance, with English artists exploring what it meant to be alive at that moment and in England. Harris examines the work of writers, painters, gardeners, architects, critics and composers, some well known and some almost forgotten: John Betjeman, Florence White, Evelyn Waugh, Elizabeth Bowen, the Sitwells, John Piper, Cecil Beaton and more.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
59 of 62 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
In this book Harris focuses on a group of English artists and writers of the thirties and forties (John Piper, the Sitwells, Virginia Woolf, Evelyn Waugh, etc.), whose modernism was combined with an English romanticism to create a rich distinctive cultural and artistic movement; one removed from the asceticism which one might associate with modernism.
Harris covers a vast amount of ground, discussing several disciplines and figures in the course of each broadly thematic chapter (with enjoyable, stand-alone digressions on food and gardening). I always felt in safe hands, however, and she built up a convincing portrait of the people and the time, told in an elegant and very enjoyable way. The subject matter felt fresh and original, lending a new perspective to the period.
One left the book with an insight of a particular time for a particular group of people. England and Englishness was felt to be under threat with the Second World War looming, and Harris excellently conveys the anxiety and uncertainty of the period, and how that influenced the art and literature which was produced in response.
The book is absolutely beautiful and aesthetically a joy to read. The pages consist of thick cream paper and the text is interspersed with high quality colour reproductions; these are much more pleasing and helpful than a collection of separate plates in the middle of the book.
Harris covers a vast amount of ground, discussing several disciplines and figures in the course of each broadly thematic chapter (with enjoyable, stand-alone digressions on food and gardening). I always felt in safe hands, however, and she built up a convincing portrait of the people and the time, told in an elegant and very enjoyable way. The subject matter felt fresh and original, lending a new perspective to the period.
One left the book with an insight of a particular time for a particular group of people. England and Englishness was felt to be under threat with the Second World War looming, and Harris excellently conveys the anxiety and uncertainty of the period, and how that influenced the art and literature which was produced in response.
The book is absolutely beautiful and aesthetically a joy to read. The pages consist of thick cream paper and the text is interspersed with high quality colour reproductions; these are much more pleasing and helpful than a collection of separate plates in the middle of the book.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I was troubled by the dilettantish nature of this book which seems to lack a clear aim. For the most part, the text flits about like a butterfly, drawn randomly from one alluring flower to the next.
The best aspect is the full colour photographs of 1930s paintings, in particular John Piper's striking collages of British landscapes. I enjoyed Chapter 1 on artists like John Piper's flirtation with abstract art, until his fascination with landscape won out . As his French contemporary Hélion observed, abstract art was proving to be a system "cracking at the seams....life budding mysteriously though it". This would have made an informative chapter in, say, an analysis of abstract art in British painting, but the next chapter changes tack to the early use of concrete in apartment blocks. It soon sets the book's pattern of being too superficial and lacking in context, for instance, there is no reference to important influences like Le Corbusier, nor to the future wave of brutalist concrete architecture of the 1960s-80s. Instead, Chapter 2 degenerates into scrappy sections on completely different topics, like Victorian pubs, so they are hard to read since they lack a coherent theme.
Thereafter, each chapter stands alone, covering some aspect of English life , mainly from the viewpoint of artists and writers in the 1930s. The wide-ranging topics include views on Victoriana, food, the state of English art in the broadest sense, the weather, village life, landscapes, or the influence of houses on artists, but all covered in a very rambling and disjointed fashion. If you are largely unfamiliar with the references, you are likely to feel overloaded and rather bored. If you have some prior knowledge you may well feel you would like to concentrate more on fewer topics. There is little regard to the social and economic context of this period of dramatic change. The focus is very much on the middle and upper classes living in the countryside or prosperous urban areas.
The chapters cannot even be called essays because they are often broken into shorter sections, further obviating the need for the author to develop a theme properly . For instance, Chapter 10 could have been an intriguing study of the landscape of 1930s Britain as captured by artists for the Shell-Mex advertisements intended to encourage new car-owners to use more petrol. In fact, this aspect is lost in a mass of verbiage with some kind of oblique connection to writing about, sculpting with regard to or drawing landscapes.
I found this book was only readable if I dipped into the odd section of interest. I was left enjoying the illustrations, but very irritated by the unfocused text. I agree with other reviewers who have regretted the lack of an objective and clear-sighted editor.
The best aspect is the full colour photographs of 1930s paintings, in particular John Piper's striking collages of British landscapes. I enjoyed Chapter 1 on artists like John Piper's flirtation with abstract art, until his fascination with landscape won out . As his French contemporary Hélion observed, abstract art was proving to be a system "cracking at the seams....life budding mysteriously though it". This would have made an informative chapter in, say, an analysis of abstract art in British painting, but the next chapter changes tack to the early use of concrete in apartment blocks. It soon sets the book's pattern of being too superficial and lacking in context, for instance, there is no reference to important influences like Le Corbusier, nor to the future wave of brutalist concrete architecture of the 1960s-80s. Instead, Chapter 2 degenerates into scrappy sections on completely different topics, like Victorian pubs, so they are hard to read since they lack a coherent theme.
Thereafter, each chapter stands alone, covering some aspect of English life , mainly from the viewpoint of artists and writers in the 1930s. The wide-ranging topics include views on Victoriana, food, the state of English art in the broadest sense, the weather, village life, landscapes, or the influence of houses on artists, but all covered in a very rambling and disjointed fashion. If you are largely unfamiliar with the references, you are likely to feel overloaded and rather bored. If you have some prior knowledge you may well feel you would like to concentrate more on fewer topics. There is little regard to the social and economic context of this period of dramatic change. The focus is very much on the middle and upper classes living in the countryside or prosperous urban areas.
The chapters cannot even be called essays because they are often broken into shorter sections, further obviating the need for the author to develop a theme properly . For instance, Chapter 10 could have been an intriguing study of the landscape of 1930s Britain as captured by artists for the Shell-Mex advertisements intended to encourage new car-owners to use more petrol. In fact, this aspect is lost in a mass of verbiage with some kind of oblique connection to writing about, sculpting with regard to or drawing landscapes.
I found this book was only readable if I dipped into the odd section of interest. I was left enjoying the illustrations, but very irritated by the unfocused text. I agree with other reviewers who have regretted the lack of an objective and clear-sighted editor.
41 of 50 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
First and foremost, this is a beautiful book. Exquisitely designed, it seduces you into wanting to read it. The type-setting, the choice of illustration, the feel is top notch.
The book is ambitious in what it is trying to achieve. Bringing together many so many creative arts is a daunting challenge. The languages of art, architecture, sculpture, literature, poetry, film and music are very varied and not easy for non-specialists to immediately grasp.
It is the scope of what she is trying to achieve is what, in the end, leads to the failure of the book to ultimately satisfy. There is no doubting her passion for the subject or the quality of her research. However there is a lack of organisation in the material that makes it hard to follow her thesis. There is almost a scatter-gun approach with many artists, writers and other creative types being considered on every page. There are a few key figures but their stories and contributions are almost lost amidst a maelstrom of other personalities.
I wanted to love this book. It is a subject that I want to know more about. However there is too much going on to make it an approachable read.
A good editor should have focussed the writing on a few key individuals and made the central thrust much easier to follow. A real shame.
The book is ambitious in what it is trying to achieve. Bringing together many so many creative arts is a daunting challenge. The languages of art, architecture, sculpture, literature, poetry, film and music are very varied and not easy for non-specialists to immediately grasp.
It is the scope of what she is trying to achieve is what, in the end, leads to the failure of the book to ultimately satisfy. There is no doubting her passion for the subject or the quality of her research. However there is a lack of organisation in the material that makes it hard to follow her thesis. There is almost a scatter-gun approach with many artists, writers and other creative types being considered on every page. There are a few key figures but their stories and contributions are almost lost amidst a maelstrom of other personalities.
I wanted to love this book. It is a subject that I want to know more about. However there is too much going on to make it an approachable read.
A good editor should have focussed the writing on a few key individuals and made the central thrust much easier to follow. A real shame.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
English artistic culture in early C20th
Fascinating period and delightful view of what was happening here when all attention seems to be on France and Paris! Read more
Published 1 month ago by art lover
A flawed work
It was an excellent idea to re-assess the artists dealt with in Alexandra Harris's first book, but the more I read the more irritated I became by the lack of a decent editor. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Steve B
Read hard for rich rewards
I just hope that Alexandra Harris doesn't ever bother reading the reviews [even this one] on this site, but just gets on with another superb book. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Graeme Withers
at last!
What we all have( or certainly should have been) waiting for. A witty, enjoyable, controversial, scholarly cross-disciplinary book about a cultural renaissance. Read more
Published 8 months ago by lightsoutreader
Good, But Not Great, Beautifully Produced and Entertaining Book
This is a beautiful book and a pleasure to own; lush cream pages, excellent colour and black and white printed illustrations dispersed throughout the text, nice chapter headings... Read more
Published 9 months ago by Dr. R. Brandon
Excellent survey of an interesting and rewarding period in British art
Alexandra Harris' "Romantic Moderns" is an excellent book. It tackles a range of writers and artists whose work explored a particular approach to, especially, landscape painting... Read more
Published 9 months ago by Hywel James
for a friend
Only had a quick look at this as it was a present for a friend but I certainly would like to read more, from cover to cover, it looked fascinating.
Published 12 months ago by patacake
great book
Although i purchased this book for a friend, a quick glance through showed it to be a great read, full of illustrations, and covering all the Arts.
Published 13 months ago by Mr. D. Burton
excellent
I really enjoyed this book, and was sorry when I came to the end. The author writes from a wide experience of art, literature and cultural history in the first half of the 20th... Read more
Published 16 months ago by Beverley
Romantic Moderns
I have given this book to several people and read it myself; I think the young author has chosen a very interesting subject, not one which has been written about before in such... Read more
Published 16 months ago by caroline beamish
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