Why read A Crisis of Brilliance?

Book cover of A Crisis of Brilliance: Five Young British Artists and the Great War

Book description

Dora Carrington, Mark Gertler, Paul Nash, Christopher Nevinson, and Stanley Spencer were five of the most important British artists of the twentieth century. From diverse backgrounds, they met at The Slade in London between 1908 and 1910, in what was later described as the school’s ";last crisis of brilliance."; Between…

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Why read it?

1 author picked A Crisis of Brilliance as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Dave McKean

Author

This book covers the drama and upheaval of the years leading up to the war to end all wars, and how five young British artist’s lives were changed utterly by their experiences, with all the energy of a great historical novel. All artists hope to find a powerful subject to drive their work, but this generation had to somehow express the madness and horror they found in those fields of Europe. A later generation would learn from these expressionists, futurists and vorticists and conjure international careers out of those lessons, but this very English group, during this century defining decade,…

From Dave's list on The best books on Paul Nash and the impact of WW11 on artists who lived through it.