Anthony Bailey > Quotes

“It was a masterpiece. Nobody bought it. (re: Rain, Steam and Speed - The Great Western Railway, 1844)”
― Anthony Bailey, Standing in the Sun: A Biography of J.M.W.Turner

“In 1846 on of his Academy exhibits was a painting called The Angel Standing in the Sun. Turner found this passage for the Academy catalogue in the Book of Revelation:

And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God; That ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, both free and bond, both small and great.

To reinforce the note of voracious doom, he added two lines from Samuel Rogers' Voyage of Columbus:

The morning march that flashes to the sun;
The feast of vultures when the day is done.”
― Anthony Bailey, Standing in the Sun: A Biography of J.M.W.Turner

“Dutch trade continued to decline, and poverty was widespread - perhaps 700,000 out of the total 2 million inhabitants in the northern provinces were dependent on charity. Colonies of distressed city folk were founded in the peat districts of Groningen and Friesland. People emigrated in larger numbers than ever before to North America.”
― Anthony Bailey, The Low Countries: A History

“Others, faced with Turner's competitiveness were less contented. C.R. Leslie was on hand when Turner's Helvoetsluys, to start with "a grey pictre, beautiful and true, but with no positive colour in any part of it", was hung next to Constable's Opening of Waterloo Bridge Leslie wrote that Constable's painting looked as if painted with liquid gold and silver, and Turner came several times into the room while Constable was heightening with vermilion and lake the decorations and flags of the city barges. Turner stood behind Constable, looking from "Waterloo" to his own picture, and at last went and got his palette from the Great Room where he had been touching another picture. He then put a round daub of red lead,

"somewhat bigger than a shilling, on his grey sea, [and] went away without saying a word. The intensity of the red lead, made more vivid by the coolness of his picture, caused even the vermilion and lake of Constable to look weak. I came into the room just as Turner left it. "He as been here," Said Constable, "and fired a gun.”
― Anthony Bailey, Standing in the Sun: A Biography of J.M.W.Turner

“From his mother, Philip inherited the Burgundian possessions. But a few years after Philip’s marriage, his wife Joanna, daughter of Isabella and Ferdinand, inherited not only Castile, but Aragon, Sicily, Naples, America, and the Indies. So when Charles V came of age, he inherited from his father, his mother, and his grandparents a great empire. He was, at once, prince of the Netherlands, king of a united Spain, and emperor of Germany.”
― Anthony Bailey, The Low Countries: A History

“Out of this catastrophe, the only people to profit were the surviving peasants, whose labor was now in great demand. With fewer to farm the land, workers could charge more for their services, though rulers attempted to legislate against this.”
― Anthony Bailey, The Low Countries: A History

“Many people in Western Europe in the year 1000 expected the world to come to an end. But instead of ending, conditions of life - particularly in the Low Countries - began to improve.”
― Anthony Bailey, The Low Countries: A History

“In 1585, after a year’s siege by Parma’s army, Antwerp - the chief stronghold of the revolt in the south - capitulated. From this point, the southern provinces were Spain’s; the north was on its own. The second stage of this critical period of Low Countries history thus begins with the provinces divided. It is from this date that the firm shape of the two modern nations of Holland and Belgium starts to appear”
― Anthony Bailey, The Low Countries: A History

“The Netherlands was the first European country to stop persecuting people suspected of witchcraft - what was probably the last witch trial there in 1610 ended in acquittal. Foreign students came to Dutch universities, and philosophers - like Descartes - found the atmosphere propitious for original thought. Germans came to join the Dutch East India Company, and Jacob Poppen, who arrived penniless from Holstein, became a burgomaster of Amsterdam and died a millionaire in 1624. English sailors served in the Dutch fleets. For twelve years the Pilgrim fathers found a friendly refuge in Leiden - “a fair and beauteous city of a sweet situation,” according to William Bradford, one of their leaders.”
― Anthony Bailey, The Low Countries: A History

“More Celtic tribes, including those the Romans called the Belgae, had been pushed westward by Germanic pressure in the second century B.C.”
― Anthony Bailey, The Low Countries: A History

“The French tried to disappear into the crowds but were identified by being forced to exclaim the Flemish oath “Schild en Vriendt” (buckler and friend). Many of the town’s ruling class - who, although bilingual, perhaps did not have good enough Flemish accents – perished, too.”
― Anthony Bailey, The Low Countries: A History