Creators
From Chaucer and Durer to Picasso and Disney
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- $8.99
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
“Johnson emphasizes the rarity of truly visionary artists . . . his approach is unfailingly generous. . . . Genuinely revealing.” —Publishers Weekly
From celebrated journalist and historian Paul Johnson, an enlightening look at the imagination and drive of visionaries who have changed our world.
Paul Johnson believes that creation is a mysterious business which cannot be satisfactorily analyzed. But it can be illustrated in such a way as to bring out its salient characteristics. In this companion to his New York Times bestseller, Intellectuals, he profiles outstanding and prolific creative spirits from a variety of artistic pursuits. Here are essays on such giants as Chaucer and Shakespeare, Mark Twain and T. S. Eliot, Jane Austen and George Eliot; artists such as Dürer, Turner, and the contemporary Japanese master Hokusai; architects Pugin and Viollet-le-Duc; Johann Sebastian Bach; Louis Comfort Tiffany; clothing designers Balenciaga and Dior; and masters of the 20th century, Picasso and Disney.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Having in a previous book filleted intellectuals, conservative historian Johnson happily embraces the canon in search of artistic heroes. In 13 biographical sketches covering six centuries, he describes the masters of literature (Shakespeare), painting (D rer), music (Bach) and adornment (Tiffany). His own efforts as a painter (mentioned with great modesty) add poignancy to his admiration for artists like Turner and Hokusai. Johnson emphasizes the rarity of truly visionary artists, but this is not a particularly polemical book: his enthusiasm for the creators overrides his tendency to play the gadfly. For Johnson, true genius resides not merely in native creativity but also in curiosity and industriousness. Many of his subjects were tremendously ambitious and prolific, with exceptions like Jane Austen serving to illustrate this all the more. Creation, says Johnson, is above all a vocation but it's also a business. It's striking that several of his subjects became quite wealthy he is particularly impressed with the riches Picasso amassed. Johnson's historical skills exceed his talents as a critic, but his approach is unfailingly generous, and his sections on Hamlet and Austen are genuinely revealing.
