Turner: Great Artists Collection, Vol. 19

by William Gaunt

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1971

About the author

William Gaunt (1900–1980) was a British artist and art historian.

After serving briefly with the Durham Light Infantry in the First World War, Gaunt went on to Worcester College, Oxford, and graduated with honours. He completed an MA at the Ruskin School of Drawing and found work as a painter, art historian, art critic, novelist and travel book writer.

During the Second World War he was commissioned by the War Artists’ Advisory Committee to paint London city bomb sites.

Gaunt was drawn to the Pre-Raphaelites, whom he considered to be underappreciated, and wrote his most enduring book on the subject, The Pre-Raphaelite Tragedy (1942), followed by further studies of Victorian art, The Aesthetic Adventure (1945) and Victorian Olympus (1952).

Reviews

[Henrik Havighorst · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite difficult to rate this "book" - since the true crux of this is Turner's pictures and not Gaunt's stiff and utterly dry descriptions of commission prices, period comparisons and countryside retreats. So yeah, you will enjoy this for the pictures but as far as the "text" goes, this is as dry as an ancient peanut.