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Thunderclap by Laura Cumming
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Thunderclap

A memoir of art and life & sudden death
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Narrator Laura Cumming

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Length 7 hours 39 minutes
Language English
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Brought to you by Penguin.

'We see with everything that we are'

On the morning of 12 October 1654, in the Dutch city of Delft, a sudden explosion was followed by a thunderclap that could be heard more than seventy miles away. Carel Fabritius - now known across the world for his exquisite painting, The Goldfinch - had been at work in his studio. He, along with many others, would not survive the day.

In Thunderclap, Laura Cumming reveals her passion for the art of the Dutch Golden Age and her determination to lift up the reputation of Fabritius. She reveals the Netherlands, where - wandering the narrow streets of Amsterdam, driving across the flatlands, or pausing at a quiet waterfront - she encounters the rich reality behind the shining beauty of Vermeer and Rembrandt, Hals and de Hooch. She shares too her relationship with her father, the Scottish artist James Cumming, who had his own deep connection to Dutch painting, and who taught her about colour, light and the rewards of looking deeply.

This is a book about what a picture may come to mean: how it can enter your life and change your thinking in a thunderclap, a sudden clarity of sight. This is also a book about the precariousness of human life - the way it may be snatched from us in an instant. What can art do to sustain us? The work that survives tells its own compelling story in these pages.

_____________________

From the Sunday Times-bestselling author of On Chapel Sands, shortlisted for the Costa Prize for Biography. Praise for On Chapel Sands:


'Cumming skilfully withholds key twists in the tale, revealing them at just the right moment' The Times

'Outstanding . . . A peerless detective story that keeps you guessing to the end' Sunday Times

Praise for The Vanishing Man, winner of the James Tait Black Prize:


'Superb and original' Sunday Times

'Sumptuous . . . A gleaming work of someone at the peak of her craft' New York Times

ยฉ2023 Laura Cumming (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Laura Cumming has been chief art critic of the Observer since 1999. Her books include A Face to the World: On Self-Portraits (2009) and The Vanishing Man: In Pursuit of Velรกzquez (2016) which won the James Tait Black Biography Prize. Her family memoir, On Chapel Sands: my Mother and other Missing Persons (2019) was a Sunday Times bestseller and shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford, Costa and Rathbone's Folio prizes.

Laura Cumming has been chief art critic of the Observer since 1999. Her books include A Face to the World: On Self-Portraits (2009) and The Vanishing Man: In Pursuit of Velรกzquez (2016) which won the James Tait Black Biography Prize. Her family memoir, On Chapel Sands: my Mother and other Missing Persons (2019) was a Sunday Times bestseller and shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford, Costa and Rathbone's Folio prizes.

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Reviews

One of the most captivating books I have ever readโ€ฆ Delightful, intimate, and dotted with beautiful art. A wonderful read (or a great present) for anyone who loves stories and art This is an extraordinary book, full of beauty and feeling and immediacy and depth (and impressive detective work)...Thunderclap is a work of genius Cumming is a word-painter ... When something fascinates Laura Cumming, she makes sure, with her beguiling prose, that we too are caught up in her fascination A book that often borders on the sublime in its sentiment and beauty Cumming clearly loves these paintings, and by weaving together vivid evocations of ones that particularly move her with brief biographies of the men and women who painted them, she invites us to share that love Expand reviews
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