Looking to Sea - What Coastal Art Tells Us About Modern Britain

''Looking to Sea is a remarkable and compelling book... I loved it.'' Edmund de Waal An alternative history of modern Britain, Looking to Sea is an exquisite work of cultural, artistic and philosophical storytelling. Looking to Sea considers ten pivotal artworks, from Vanessa Bell''s Studland Beach , one of the first modernist paintings in Britain, to Paul Nash''s work bearing the scars of his experience in the trenches and Martin Parr''s photographs of seaside resorts in the 1980s, which raised controversial questions of class. Each of the startlingly different pieces, created between 1912 and 2015, opens a window onto big ideas, from modernism and the sublime, the impact of the world wars and colonialism, to issues crucial to our world today like the environment and nationhood. In this astonishingly perceptive portrait of the twentieth century, art critic Lily Le Brun brings a fresh eye to a vast idea, offering readers an imaginative new way of seeing our island nation. ''Le Brun''s writing is at once bold and delicate, far-reaching and fine-tuned. Her book explores the inexhaustible variety of human perception.'' Alexandra Harris

Product details

• Authors: Lily Le Brun, LE BRUN LILY, Lily Le Brun
• Publisher: Sceptre
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback
• Released: 31.12.2020
• EAN: 9781529309249
• ISBN: 978-1-5293-0924-9
• No. of pages: 320
• Dimensions: 126 mm x 194 mm x 24 mm
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Art > Art history; 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000, ART / Subjects & Themes / Landscapes & Seascapes, HISTORY / Europe / Great Britain / 20th Century, 20th century, c 1900 to c 1999, United Kingdom, Great Britain, Modernism, Oceans and seas, Oceans & seas, History and Archaeology, Nature in art