CREATORS: From Chaucer to Walt Disney - Hardcover

Johnson, Paul

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0297851233 ISBN 13: 9780297851233

Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2006

Synopsis

Unusual book

About this title

About the Author:

Paul Johnson is a historian whose work ranges over the millennia and the whole gamut of human activities. He regularly writes book reviews for several UK magazines and newspapers, such as the Literary Review and The Spectator, and he lectures around the world. He lives in London, England.

From 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 (Dürer), 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. (Apr. 1)
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About this edition

• Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0297851233
• ISBN 13: 9780297851233
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320