A collection of essays and articles on art and literature, written, over the course of the last twenty-five years, by a writer who has earned recognition as much for her academic achievement as for the accomplishment of her literary career.
Brookner begins by focusing on the life and work of the three great nineteenth-century French painters Gericault, Ingres and Delacroix. Examining their achievements and differences, stylistically, psychologically and in terms of their philosophical approaches, she constructs an analysis of the complex clashes between the Romantic and the Classical movements themselves.
She casts her net wide, taking up subjects ranging from Rousseau's 'Social Contract' to Doris Lessing's 'Golden Notebook', from the Book of Job to Corot. In this incisive and sometimes controversial collection, she also examines the lives and loves of Rosa Bonheur and Louise Colet, who arrived at a certain greatness in the literary and art worlds but have been less remembered than they deserved.
