Richardson's engrossing second volume on Picasso lays bare the inceptions of Cubism, bringing to life the decadent milieu that surrounded the virile master who transformed the course of 20th- century painting. This installment in the author's monumental biography opens on the eve of Picasso's painting of the revolutionary Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, which, incidentally, wasn't publicly exhibited until 1916, nor was it hailed as revolutionary until the early '20s (by AndrÇ Breton). The painting was so radical that it shocked even the band of cronies who never left Picasso's side—including Max Jacob and Apollinaire—who, upon viewing it, ``took refuge in embarrassed silence.'' Although Picasso later denied it, the women's angular feature had been influenced by tribal masks—he was fascinated by these fetishes functioning as weapons to ward off evil spirits—but he was deeply affected by the work of El Greco and CÇzanne as well. Ironically, it was Braque who, having seen Demoiselles, painted and exhibited a series of ``cubist'' canvases that would subject him to the public's outrage. This was a brilliant move, Richardson points out, on the part of Picasso, who feared xenophobic hostility and allowed Braque to situate himself on the front lines while he sat back and watched. Living in Montmartre with the beautiful Fernande Olivier, whom he had once worshipped but who now served as a model for one of the whores, he was surrounded by talented acolytes who enjoyed opium, bisexual escapades, mean-spirited drunken shenanigans, and the swapping of mistresses. Poverty was held barely at bay thanks to the patronage of Gertrude and Leo Stein and the art dealer Kahnweiler. Richardson masterfully describes the inseparable life and art of his magnetic subject, whose love of women went hand in hand with his misogyny, and whose propensity to reject led painting forward more than any other painter in this century. (illustrations, not seen)
Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-394-55918-5
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 1996
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular...
A neurosurgeon with a passion for literature tragically finds his perfect subject after his diagnosis of terminal lung cancer.
Writing isn’t brain surgery, but it’s rare when someone adept at the latter is also so accomplished at the former. Searching for meaning and purpose in his life, Kalanithi pursued a doctorate in literature and had felt certain that he wouldn’t enter the field of medicine, in which his father and other members of his family excelled. “But I couldn’t let go of the question,” he writes, after realizing that his goals “didn’t quite fit in an English department.” “Where did biology, morality, literature and philosophy intersect?” So he decided to set aside his doctoral dissertation and belatedly prepare for medical school, which “would allow me a chance to find answers that are not in books, to find a different sort of sublime, to forge relationships with the suffering, and to keep following the question of what makes human life meaningful, even in the face of death and decay.” The author’s empathy undoubtedly made him an exceptional doctor, and the precision of his prose—as well as the moral purpose underscoring it—suggests that he could have written a good book on any subject he chose. Part of what makes this book so essential is the fact that it was written under a death sentence following the diagnosis that upended his life, just as he was preparing to end his residency and attract offers at the top of his profession. Kalanithi learned he might have 10 years to live or perhaps five. Should he return to neurosurgery (he could and did), or should he write (he also did)? Should he and his wife have a baby? They did, eight months before he died, which was less than two years after the original diagnosis. “The fact of death is unsettling,” he understates. “Yet there is no other way to live.”
A moving meditation on mortality by a gifted writer whose dual perspectives of physician and patient provide a singular clarity.Pub Date: Jan. 19, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-8129-8840-6
Page Count: 248
Publisher: Random House
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
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