Pallas Athene – The Bell Bookshop

Venice For Pleasure

Emma — Thu, 23 Jul 2015 00:00:00 +0000

“None of Venice’s innumerable chroniclers have portrayed the Serenissima’s character with quite such a combination of the scholarly, the informal and the intimate…Over the years thousands of readers, starting this book, have been relieved to encounter its famously undemanding approach to the city – ‘Generally the first thing to do in Venice is to sit down and have some coffee’: but by the time they get to the end of it, all the same, they will have learnt virtually everything that an educated stranger needs to know about the place, its art and its history, besides being subtly entertained throughout.'” – From the Introduction by Jan Morris.

Ruskin & His Contemporaries

Emma — Thu, 25 Oct 2018 00:00:00 +0000

In celebration of the 200th anniversary of the birth of one of Victorian Britain’s greatest thinkers, the art critic and social reformer John Ruskin, the distinguished Ruskinian Robert Hewison introduces Ruskin’s ideas and values through revelatory studies of the people and issues that shaped his thought, and the ideas and values that in turn were shaped by his writings and personality. Beginning with an exploration of the rich tradition of European art that stimulated his imagination, and to which he responded in his own skilful drawings, Ruskin and his Contemporaries follows the uniquely visual dimension of his thinking from the aesthetic, religious and political foundations laid by his parents to his difficult personal and critical relationship with Turner, and his encounters with the art and architecture of Venice. Victor Hugo makes a surprising appearance as Ruskin develops his ideas on the relationship between art and society. Ruskin’s role as a contemporary art critic is explored in two chapters on Holman Hunt, one focussing on the Pre-Raphaelite’s The Awakening Conscience, one examining his later Triumph of the Innocents. The development of Ruskin’s role as a social critic is traced through his teaching at the London Workingmen’s College and his foundation of the Guild of St George, a reforming society that continues to this day. Oscar Wilde came under his personal influence, as did Octavia Hill, a founder of the National Trust. The evolutionary theories of Charles Darwin are shown to have been deeply unsettling to Ruskin’s worldview. The book concludes with a demonstration of the profound influence of the Paradise Myth on all of Ruskin’s writings, followed by an exploration of the concept of cultural value that shows why Ruskin’s ruling principle: ‘There is no wealth but Life’ is as relevant to the 21st century as it was to the 19th.

Ciao Carpaccio!

Emma — Wed, 01 Jan 2014 00:00:00 +0000

“After a good dinner one evening, with excellent company and a bottle of wine, I settled by my fire with a volume of paintings by the 15th century Venetian painter Vittore Carpaccio. For much of my life I have been under the spell of this artist. I am no connoisseur, cultural scholar or art historian. I know nothing about painterly techniques, chromatic gradations or artistic affinities, and my infatuation with him is largely affectionate fancy. I feel I know him personally, and I often sense that I am directly in touch with him across the centuries, across the continents, as one might be in touch with a living friend…” So starts Jan Morris’s book, which she has said will also be her last: a genial, witty, and touching journey through the endlessly evocative art of Carpaccio. Saluting the painter whose pictures remain some of the most enchanting ever made of Venice, Jan Morris makes her own last journey to a city she has written about like no other. Richly illustrated with complete paintings and eye-catching details, this book is a fitting swansong by a great writer to her favourite painter.