The Paper Garden An Artist Begins Her Life s Work at 72 #pdf by Molly Peacock

An Artist Begins Her Life s Work at 72


Bloomsbury Publishing PLC | ISBN:1608195236 | File Type: PDF, 397 pages | File size: 69.Mb | Unknown
Artists Architects Photographers Biographies Autobiographies: An Artist Begins Her Life s Work at 72 The aper Garden is unlike anything else you have ever read At once a biography of an extraordinary 18th century gentlewoman and a meditation on late life creativity it is a beautifly written tour de force from an acclaimed poet Mary Granville endarves Delany 1700 1788 was the witty beautif and talented daughter of a minor branch of a powerf English family Married off at 16 to a 61 year old drunken squire to improve the family fortunes she was widowed by 25 and henceforth had a small stipend and a horror of marriage She spurned many suitors over the next twenty years including the powerf Lord Baltimore and the charismatic radical John Wesley She ctivated a wide circle of friends including Handel and Jonathan Swift And she painted she stitched she observed as she swirled in the outskirts of the Georgian court In mid life she found love and married Upon her beloved husband s death 23 years later she arose from her grief picked up a pair of scissors and at the age of 72 created a new art form mixed media collage which she called mosaicks Over the next decade Mrs Delany created an astonishing 985 botanically correct breathtaking cut paper flowers now housed in the British Museum and referred to as the Flora Delanica eacock an award winning poet has delicately woven parallels in her own life around the story of Mrs Delany s and in doing so has made this biography into a profound and beautif examination of the nature of creativity and art Gorgeously designed and featuring 35 fl color illustrations this is a sumptuous and lively book fl of fashion and friendships gossip and politics letters and love It s to be devoured as voraciously as one of the court dinners it describes