Peacock and Vine

This ravishing book opens a window onto the lives, designs, and passions of two charismatic artists. Born a generation apart, they were seeming opposites: Mariano Fortuny, a Spanish aristocrat thrilled by the sun-baked cultures of Crete and Knossos; William Morris, a British craftsman, in thrall to the myths of the North. Yet through their revolutionary inventions and textiles, both men inspired a new variety of art, as vibrant today as when it was first conceived. Acclaimed writer A.S. Byatt traces their genius right to the source.The Palazzo Pesaro Orfei in Venice is a warren of dark spaces leading to a workshop where Fortuny created his designs for pleated silks and shining velvets. Here he worked alongside the French model who became his wife and collaborator, including on the 'Delphos' dress - a flowing gown evoking classical Greece.Morris's Red House, outside London, with its Gothic turrets and secret gardens, helped inspire his stunning floral and geometric patterns; it also represented a coming together of life and art. But it was Kelmscott Manor in the English countryside that he loved best - even when it became the setting for his wife's love affair with Dante Gabriel Rossetti. Generously illustrated with the artists' beautiful designs - pomegranates and acanthus, peacock and vine - A.S. Byatt brings the visions and ideas of Fortuny and Morris dazzlingly to life.

Product details

• Authors: A S Byatt, A. S. Byatt, A.S. Byatt, Antonia S. Byatt
• Publisher: Chatto and Windus
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 31.07.2016
• EAN: 9781784740801
• ISBN: 978-1-78474-080-1
• No. of pages: 192
• Dimensions: 148 mm x 179 mm x 18 mm
• Series: Chatto & Windus
• Subjects: Fiction > Narrative literature > Essays, feuilletons, literary criticism, interviews; Humanities, art, music > Art > Interior design, design; Non-fiction book > Music, film, theatre > Biographies, autobiographies; LITERARY COLLECTIONS / Essays, Literary essays