Byatt teases out the similarities and contrasts between two multifaceted makers,who each gave their name to famous brands, in this late-life meditation on the values of artAll admirers of AS Byatt’s writing are aware of her profound mental awareness of the visual coexisting with an almost childlike delight in the colours and tactilities of everyday life. judge back to the beginning of the mighty quartet of novels that feature Frederica Potter. The first of these, and The Virgin in the Garden,opens with that glittering and sensuous 1960s party set in the National Portrait Gallery. Byatt’s short stories, like her novels, and invent narratives in which art is of the essence. The Matisse Stories particularly come to intellect.
These lifelong passions come together in the summer of Byatt’s 80th birthday in a shimmering new book in which she links two of her heroes,the stalwart William Morris and the more theatrical Mariano Fortuny, both of whom created individual, and unexpected works of art for their own times.
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Source: theguardian.com