Romantic Moderns: English Writers, Artists and the Imagination from Virginia Woolf to John Piper

In the 1930s and 1940s, artists and writers in England explored what it meant to be alive in a provincial world of old churches and tea shops. This modern English renaissance was shared by writers, painters, gardeners, architects, critics, tourists, and composers, such as John Betjeman, John Piper, Virginia Woolf, Florence White, Christopher Tunnard, Evelyn Waugh, E. M. Forster, and the Sitwells.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 416 pages
Publication date: 06 April 2023
Publisher: Thames & Hudson Ltd

While the fierce conflicts for modern art and society raged in France and Spain, it has seemed a travesty that John Betjeman and John Piper found solace in the provincial world of ancient churches and tea shops. In this multi-award-winning book, Alexandra Harris tells a different story. In the 1930s and 1940s, artists and writers in England delved into the meaning of life. Eclectically, passionately, wittily, they demonstrated that 'the modern need not be at war with the past.' Constructivists and conservatives could work together, and even the Bauhaus émigré, László Moholy-Nagy, was seduced into taking photographs for Betjeman's nostalgic Oxford University Chest.

This modern English renaissance was shared by writers, painters, gardeners, architects, critics, tourists, and composers. John Piper, Virginia Woolf, Florence White, Christopher Tunnard, Evelyn Waugh, E. M. Forster, and the Sitwells are part of the story, along with Bill Brandt, Graham Sutherland, Eric Ravilious, and Cecil Beaton.

Dimension: 198 x 129 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780500296486
Edition number: New Edition