Soundings

by Anita Brookner

The essays and articles on art and literature assembled here have been written over the last twenty-five years by a writer who has earned recognition as much for her academic achievements as for the accomplishments of her literary career. Anita Brookner begins with the lives and work of the three great nineteenth-century French painters-Gricault, Ingres, and Delacroix-using them as the springboard for an analysis of the complex clashes between the Romantic and Classical movements. She goes on to cast a wide net, taking up subjects ranging from Rousseau's social contract to Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook, from the Book of Job to the French painter Corot. In this incisive and sometimes controversial collection, Brookner also examines the loves and lives of Rosa Bonheur and Louise Colet, women who arrived at a certain greatness in the literary and art worlds but have been less remembered than they deserved.

Genres: Art, Essays

214 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Anita Brookner published her first novel, A Start In Life in 1981. Her most notable novel, her fourth, Hotel du Lac won the Man Booker Prize in 1984. Her novel, The Next Big Thing was longlisted (alongside John Banville's, Shroud) in 2002 for the Man Booker Prize. She published more than 25 works of fiction, notably: Strangers (2009) shortlisted for the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, Fraud (1992) and, The Rules of Engagement (2003). She was also the first female to hold a Slade Professorship of Fine Arts at Cambridge University.