Suzanne Fagence Cooper
Quercus, 2019.
"What can we learn from John Ruskin?
"In our age of immediacy, the visionary Victorian artist and critic inspires us to look and to linger. Fierce and encouraging, Ruskin 's writing's transform our sense of connection to the built environment and the natural world.
"Ruskin imagines new ways for 'hand, head and heart' to work together. He teaches us that buildings tell stories; how to travel with more care; the need to respond to our own mental fragility and to the anxieties of others. Ruskin tells us how to work more effectively, and more fairly Above all he challenges us to keep learning, in small ways and in great.
"Ruskin guides our focus from the smallest scale, the intense blue petal of a gentian flower, to the colossal: an Alp, a Gothic cathedral, the ilig,htof an eagle across a continent. With our eyes opened by John Ruskin, we can see more clearly how to take responsibility for our interconnected world.
"Suzanne Fagence Cooper is Research Curator at York Art Gallery, for the exhibition 'Ruskin, Turner & the Storm Cloud'. She was Research Fellow at the V&A. Museum, and is an historical consultant for film, TV and radio. She lectures for Cunard and the Arts Society. Her other books include Pre-Raphaelite Art in the V&A Museum and Effle Gray. "
Suzanne Fagence Cooper
Quercus, 2022.
"'The house that would please me would be some great room, where one talked to one's friends in one corner, and ate in another, and slept in another; and worked in another'
"William Morris - poet, designer, campaigner,hero of the Arts & Crafts movement - wasa giant of the Victorian age. His beautiful creations and radical philosophies are Still with us today: but his wife Jane is too often relegated to a footnote, an artist's model given no history or personality of her own. In truth, Jane and William's partnership was the central collaboration of both their lives.
"Together they overturned conventional distinctions between work and play, public and private spaces, women and men, even the Victorian class structure. At every stage,Jane was transformative, hospitable. and engaged. The homes they made together --at Red House, Kelmscott Manor and their houses in London - were works of art, and the great labour of their lives was life itself. Through their houses, their friendships and their creations, they experimented with fruitful ways of living and working. They show us how we might enjoy lives filled with hope and beauty.
"In How We Might Live, Suzanne Faigence Cooper explores the lives and legacies of Jane and William Morris, finally giving Jane's work the attention she deserves and taking us inside two lives of unparalleled integrity and artistry.
"Dr Suzanne Fagence Cooper is an art historian working on 19th and 20th• century British art. She was a curator and Research Fellow at the V&A Museum for 12 years and is currently Honorary Visiting Fellow at the University of York. She recently curated a major exhibition on John Ruskin and. J. M. W. Turner. She is the author of To See Clearly:Why Ruskin Matters, Effie Gray and Pre-Raphaelite Art in the Victoria and Albert Museum. She is a trustee of the Burne-Jones catalogue raisonne, and has worked as a consultant for TV and film projects. She is also an invited lecturer for the Arts Society and Cunard."
No comments:
Post a Comment