Peacock & Vine: Fortuny and Morris in Life and At Work - Hardcover

Byatt, A. S.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1784740802 ISBN 13: 9781784740801

Publisher: Chatto & Windus, 2016

Synopsis

An alluring and atmospheric enquiry into the creative impulse -- as seen through the work and lives of Mariano Fortuny and William Morris -- by one of our greatest novelists.

This ravishing little book, glowing with colour and generously illustrated throughout, opens a window on to the lives, passions and designs of two great artists a generation apart, William Morris and Mariano Fortuny. Inspired by a vision of the aquamarine light of Venice balancing Morris's green English countryside, A.S. Byatt delves into the world-transforming magic of their art, asking what fired them, how they lived and worked and how each man's art mirrors and confronts the other.

A.S. Byatt combines her brilliant gift for character and place with a deep understanding of the craft, and the combination of profound ideas and sensual delight that make the art of Morris's and Fortuny endure -- a ghostly presence outside time. Peacock and Vine is a work of art in itself -- the perfect present to give, to keep, to ponder over and to treasure.

About this title

About the Author

A.S. BYATT is internationally known as a novelist, short-story writer and critic. Her novels include Possession (winner of the Booker Prize in 1990), and the quartet of The Virgin in the Garden, Still Life, Babel Tower and A Whistling Woman, as well as The Shadow of the Sun, The Game and The Biographer's Tale. Her novel The Children's Book was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2009. She is also the author of two novellas, published together as Angels and Insects, and four collections of stories, and has co-edited Memory: An Anthology. Educated at York and Newnham College, Cambridge, she taught at the Central School of Art and Design, and was Senior Lecturer in English at University College, London, before becoming a full-time writer in 1983. She was appointed CBE in 1990 and DBE in 1999.

Edition details

• Publisher: Chatto & Windus
• Publication date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1784740802
• ISBN 13: 9781784740801
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 192