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Laddar... Eric Gill: A Lover's Quest for Art and God (utgåvan 1989)av Fiona MacCarthy
VerksinformationEric Gill av Fiona MacCarthy
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Gå med i LibraryThing för att få reda på om du skulle tycka om den här boken. Det finns inga diskussioner på LibraryThing om den här boken. Biography of the type designer (maybe you’ve heard of Gill Sans) and sculptor. Besides his endless creative energy, he seems to have a hyperactive libido. He had numerous affairs and had sex with his sisters and daughters, as detailed in his diaries. He was a zealous convert to Catholicism but found ways to justify all this. This biography led to a controversy about whether his sculptures of the Stations of the Cross in Westminster Cathedral should be removed, given his history as a pedophile. The Church refused. (I think art should be judged on its own merits, but I love his art and I wasn’t sexually abused as a child, so it’s not my ox being gored.) I didn’t mind his hypocrisy because, unless they oppress others with their beliefs, I’m not offended by individuals saying one thing and doing another. I think that kind of disconnect is human nature. He died of lung cancer at only 50, from smoking and years of carving stone with no protection. I liked this biography; he's an interesting guy and this showed him warts and all. I didn’t mind his hypocrisy because, unless they oppress others with their beliefs, I’m not offended by individuals saying one thing and doing another, and he didn’t do that. I think that kind of disconnect is human nature. Talk about the divided self! Three determining components of Gill's personality were: (1) Roman Catholic extremism, (2) genius and uncompromising dedication to his craft, and (3) an omniverous sexuality that highlighted (is that the right word) lifelong incest (with sisters and daughters) and experiments with bestiality. MacCarthy presents all of this with a poker face that's a model of the biographer's quest for objectivity. inga recensioner | lägg till en recension
Eric Gill was perhaps the greatest English artist-craftsman of the twentieth century: a typographer and lettercutter of genius and a master in the art of sculpture and wood-engraving. 'A wonderfully detailed account of his personality - so vivid, you feel you know just what it would have been like to visit him at one of his patriarchal communes . . . A Dominican, dining with the Gills, once thought he saw a nimbus shining around Eric's head. Despite the sexual improprieties it unearths, MacCarthy's authoritative biography allows you to understand how someone might have thought that.' John Carey, Sunday Times Inga biblioteksbeskrivningar kunde hittas. |
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Gill is (or at least was) a revered British sculptor and typographer, fervent Catholic convert (at the time he was taking Catholic instruction he was also working on a life-size marble sculpture of his own penis), pillar of the progressive Left, and creator of public monuments like the Stations of the Cross at Westminster Cathedral and Prospero and Ariel outside Broadcasting House. How do we reconcile these with his sexual voraciousness? (Last year one guy decided taking a hammer to Prospero and Ariel was the solution.) Fiona McCarthy has to deal with this contradictory life in this superb biography. She's explicit but not prurient, and explicates Gill’s complicated personal philosophy and religious belief which, at least for him, squared the circle, without letting him off the hook. It's a model for a biographer tackling such explosive revelations.
A typographic note: the cover is in Gill Sans, the text is not one of Gill's (the typeface choice sadly isn't mentioned in the colophon); the design is lovely but with frequent mentions of the Gills' home Capel-y-ffin I wish designer Ron Costley had used an ffi ligature… ( )