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The Golden Road to Samarkand
A beautifully illustrated large book recounting dramatic journeys of men who have ventured across Central Asia, including Alexander the Great, Sir Aurel Stein, Hsuantsang, Marco Polo, Kutayba, and Ibn Battuta.
- GenresHistory
280 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 1973
13 people want to read
About the author
Wilfrid Blunt
55 books2 followersnote: This profile is for the artist and gardener. For the poet go here: Wilfrid Scarwen Blunt
Wilfrid Jasper Walter Blunt was an artist, art teacher, author and curator of the Watts Museum near Guildford.
Blunt received a scholarship to Marlborough College where he studied between 1914 and 1920.
After a year at Worcester College, Oxford, Blunt switched to the Atelier Moderne in Paris to become an artist. By the following year he was an engraving student at the Royal College of Art, London where he received an Associates degree in 1923.
Blunt joined Haileybury College, Hertfordshire, as its art instructor in 1923. He spent the year 1933 on leave training as a concert singer in Italy and Germany, but pursued singing only avocationally. Europe broadened his cultural outlook enough that returning to a provincial school was no longer rewarding. Blunt researched and published work on the architect William Wilkins, who had designed the buildings of Haileybury in 1806. The previous year, a family connection got him a position of second drawing master at Eton College.
In 1950, Blunt wrote his most acclaimed book The Art of Botanical Illustration, together with W.T. Stearn, for which he was awarded the Veitch Gold Medal from the Royal Horticultural Society. At Eton he encouraged italic handwriting, publishing the book Sweet Roman Hand on the subject in 1952. Blunt retired from Eton in 1959 and joined the Watts Gallery Museum in Compton, near Guildford, as a curator. When he retired from the Gallery in 1983 he was allowed to live in the curator's house until his death. His brothers were Christopher Evelyn Blunt, a noted numismatist, and Anthony Blunt, the eminent art historian (and spy).
source:Wilfrid Blunt
Wilfrid Jasper Walter Blunt was an artist, art teacher, author and curator of the Watts Museum near Guildford.
Blunt received a scholarship to Marlborough College where he studied between 1914 and 1920.
After a year at Worcester College, Oxford, Blunt switched to the Atelier Moderne in Paris to become an artist. By the following year he was an engraving student at the Royal College of Art, London where he received an Associates degree in 1923.
Blunt joined Haileybury College, Hertfordshire, as its art instructor in 1923. He spent the year 1933 on leave training as a concert singer in Italy and Germany, but pursued singing only avocationally. Europe broadened his cultural outlook enough that returning to a provincial school was no longer rewarding. Blunt researched and published work on the architect William Wilkins, who had designed the buildings of Haileybury in 1806. The previous year, a family connection got him a position of second drawing master at Eton College.
In 1950, Blunt wrote his most acclaimed book The Art of Botanical Illustration, together with W.T. Stearn, for which he was awarded the Veitch Gold Medal from the Royal Horticultural Society. At Eton he encouraged italic handwriting, publishing the book Sweet Roman Hand on the subject in 1952. Blunt retired from Eton in 1959 and joined the Watts Gallery Museum in Compton, near Guildford, as a curator. When he retired from the Gallery in 1983 he was allowed to live in the curator's house until his death. His brothers were Christopher Evelyn Blunt, a noted numismatist, and Anthony Blunt, the eminent art historian (and spy).
source:Wilfrid Blunt
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
December 16, 2016
This is a good survey of well known travelogues in, through, and around central Asia, from the 7th-century Buddhist monk Xuanzang, to the 17th-century English trader Anthony Jenkinson.
Actually there are two additional travelers covered in the book after Jenkinson, but I generally lose interest entering the early modern period so stopped there. If possible one should read the travelogues themselves, and I intend to do this for several (e.g., Ibn Battuta and Babur really stood out for me). Some of Blunt's analysis is Eurocentric in an unselfconscious, twirpy way not surprising in the mid-20th century in which Golden Road was written, but pretty obnoxious now. But he means well, and is clearly taken with his subject matter. In general, this was a very enjoyable read and it contains great images.
Actually there are two additional travelers covered in the book after Jenkinson, but I generally lose interest entering the early modern period so stopped there. If possible one should read the travelogues themselves, and I intend to do this for several (e.g., Ibn Battuta and Babur really stood out for me). Some of Blunt's analysis is Eurocentric in an unselfconscious, twirpy way not surprising in the mid-20th century in which Golden Road was written, but pretty obnoxious now. But he means well, and is clearly taken with his subject matter. In general, this was a very enjoyable read and it contains great images.
Displaying 1 of 1 review