Susan Owens
The Long Road to the Royal Academy
Constable: A Portrait
By James Hamilton
Weidenfeld & Nicolson 472pp £25
John Constable, as James Hamilton observes in the introduction of his absorbing Constable: A Portrait, was an unlikely revolutionary. He was a reactionary Tory who thought of political reformers as ‘the devil’s viceregents on earth’. He did not, says Hamilton, ‘get drunk at Royal Academy dinners, insult his elders and scandalise’. Neither was he a visionary outsider like William Blake. When Blake admired his sketches, exclaiming ‘this is not drawing but inspiration’, Constable sarcastically replied that he had, actually, meant them to be drawings. Yet despite being a natural member of the establishment, Constable’s revolutionary vision meant that the branch of it to which he so desperately wanted to belong kept the door closed to him for an inordinately long time. Constable was forty-three by the time he scraped enough votes to become an associate of the Royal Academy (his rival and near-contemporary J M W Turner was elected at twenty-four), and was not elected to full membership until he was fifty-two (Turner had been just twenty-six). But it was precisely Constable’s innate conservatism that made him determined to be accepted. The story of his life is the story of the dogged way in which he kept
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
Knowledge of Sufism increased markedly with the publication in 1964 of The Sufis, by Idries Shah. Nowadays his writings, much like his father’s, are dismissed for their Orientalism and inaccuracy.
@fitzmorrissey investigates who the Shahs really were.
Fitzroy Morrissey - Sufism Goes West
Fitzroy Morrissey: Sufism Goes West - Empire’s Son, Empire’s Orphan: The Fantastical Lives of Ikbal and Idries Shah by Nile Green
literaryreview.co.uk
Rats have plagued cities for centuries. But in Baltimore, researchers alighted on one surprising solution to the problem of rat infestation: more rats.
@WillWiles looks at what lessons can be learned from rat ecosystems – for both rats and humans.
Will Wiles - Puss Gets the Boot
Will Wiles: Puss Gets the Boot - Rat City: Overcrowding and Urban Derangement in the Rodent Universes of John B ...
literaryreview.co.uk
Twisters features destructive tempests and blockbuster action sequences.
@JonathanRomney asks what the real danger is in Lee Isaac Chung's disaster movie.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/eyes-of-the-storm