Overview

"Named a Top 100 Must-Read Book of the Year by Time and a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker * Winner of the 2024 Writers' Prize for Nonfiction * Shortlisted for the Inaugural Women's Prize for Nonfiction * Longlisted for the RSL Ondaatje Prize New York Times bestselling author Laura Cumming ""combines first-rate art history with deeply felt memoir"" (The Washington Post) in this fascinating, little-known story of the massive explosion in Holland that killed Carel Fabritius, renowned painter of The Goldfinch and A View of Delft and nearly killed Johannes Vermeer--two of the greatest artists of the 17th century. ""Exquisite."" --Simon Schama, The Guardian As a brilliant art critic and historian, Laura Cumming has explored the importance of art in life and can give us a perspective on the time and place in which the artist worked. Now, through the lens of one dramatic event in 17th-century Holland, Cumming ""has fashioned a book that combines memoir, art criticism, and history to illuminating effect"" (The New York Times Book Review). In 1654, the Thunderclap--an enormous explosion at a gunpowder store--devasted the city of Delft, killing hundreds of people, including the extraordinary painter Carel Fabritius, and injuring thousands more. Framing the story around the life of Fabritius, Cumming illuminates this extraordinary moment in art history while also writing about her own father, a painter. Like Dutch art, the story gradually links country, city, town, street, house, interior--all the way to the bird on its perch, the blue and white tile, the smallest seed in a loaf of bread. The impact of a painting and how it can enter our thoughts, influence our view and understanding of the world is the heart of this book. Cumming has brought her unique eye to her most compelling subject yet. Featuring beautiful full-color images of Dutch paintings throughout, this is ""a glorious tribute to the two men who showed her the truth of the notion that paintings offer 'a land in themselves, a society, a place to be'"" (The Economist)."

Full Product Details

9781982181741

Table of Contents

Reviews

Praise for The Vanishing Velazquez A sumptuous, impressively erudite effort by Laura Cumming, the art critic at the Observer, in London, to retrace Snare's attempts to determine the painting's elusive pedigree. But it's a good deal more than that... it's extremely accomplished -- a gleaming work of someone at the peak of her craft. --Jennifer Senior, The New York Times Superb and original... This enthralling book is about what it means to create art so luminous that others would fight just to get close to it. --Bee Wilson, The Sunday Times Cumming writes with deep feeling, critical expertise and lovely prose. --Shelf Awareness Enchanting. --The Boston Globe As compelling and entertaining as a detective novel, this is an engaging book... Ms Cumming paints a beguiling picture of lives lived for art. --The Economist Praise for On Chapel Sands (formerly titled FIVE DAYS GONE) This is an incredible, and incredibly unusual, book about family, secrets, the ruinous sexual shame and hypocrisy of the first half of the English twentieth century. It's one of the best memoirs I have ever read... There is so much about [Five Days Gone] that moves; there is so much about it that educates. It is, and will remain a favorite, to be re-read one day, to be recommended to anyone who will listen. --The Believer Vivid. --The New Yorker Brilliant... Cumming is adept in knowing how much to disclose and when to hold back... The book is a love letter to her mother, whose warmth, articulacy and survival instincts shine through. --The Guardian One of the most compelling memoirs of recent years, a book with as many twists and turns as any mystery, a family history of great emotional resonance... It's an extraordinary story, and an even better book. --The Los Angeles Times Laura Cumming's tale of pictures, secrets and the strange disappearance of her mother is an outstanding achievement... Enthralling... Much more than a search for truth. It is a moving, many-sided human story of great depth and tenderness, and a revelation of how art enriches life. In short, a masterpiece. --Sunday Times (UK)

"Praise for Thunderclap ""In this vivid history of the golden age of Dutch painting and elegant and luminous work, Cumming writes with deep feeling and knowledge about how 'pictures can shore you up, remind you who you are and what you stand for.' Art lovers will be enthralled."" --Publishers Weekly ""[Through] spellbinding storytelling, Thunderclap is as deftly told as any thriller. It is also an astonishingly rich book about the glories that are revealed to us when we look at great paintings with careful attention, and an open heart. How a work of art can suddenly open our eyes in a thunderclap of clarity."" --The Bookseller (UK) ""A tender homage to art, Cumming melds memoir, art history, and biography in an elegant, beautifully illustrated meditation on art, desire, imagination, and memory. From shards of evidence, Cumming has created a nuanced portrait of an enigmatic artist whose works have profoundly affected her. Moving reflections rendered in precise, radiant prose."" --Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review ""There's a passionate energy in this book, a dexterity of description and narrative and a sensitivity to the subtleties of painting and personal memory that leaves you utterly breathless and transfixed. You are never going to read a better book about the experience of art--and of love."" --Philip Hoare, author of Albert and the Whale: Albrecht Dürer and How Art Imagines Our World ""A work at once generous and private (family love spills bright from the book) that shows us how it is to live and die, as a painter must, by light and dark and their transmission. Cumming reconsiders the lives of painters of the Golden Age of Dutch painting, most especially Carel Fabritius, whose brief, sad life and few works she summons . . . in prose that shines."" --Candia McWilliam, author of What to Look for in Winter: A Memoir in Blindness ""A paragon of staggering insight and exquisite beauty. Delicate, exact, visionary, personal."" --Keggie Carew, author of Beastly: The 40,000-Year Story of Animals and Us ""An intimate and compelling investigation of the art of memory, and what survives of us."" --Nancy Campbell, author of Fifty Words for Snow Praise for The Vanishing Velázquez ""A sumptuous, impressively erudite effort by Laura Cumming, the art critic at the Observer, in London, to retrace Snare's attempts to determine the painting's elusive pedigree. But it's a good deal more than that... it's extremely accomplished -- a gleaming work of someone at the peak of her craft."" --Jennifer Senior, The New York Times ""Superb and original... This enthralling book is about what it means to create art so luminous that others would fight just to get close to it."" --Bee Wilson, The Sunday Times ""Cumming writes with deep feeling, critical expertise and lovely prose."" --Shelf Awareness ""Enchanting."" --The Boston Globe ""As compelling and entertaining as a detective novel, this is an engaging book... Ms Cumming paints a beguiling picture of lives lived for art."" --The Economist Praise for On Chapel Sands (formerly titled FIVE DAYS GONE) ""This is an incredible, and incredibly unusual, book about family, secrets, the ruinous sexual shame and hypocrisy of the first half of the English twentieth century. It's one of the best memoirs I have ever read... There is so much about [Five Days Gone] that moves; there is so much about it that educates. It is, and will remain a favorite, to be re-read one day, to be recommended to anyone who will listen."" --The Believer ""Vivid."" --The New Yorker ""Brilliant... Cumming is adept in knowing how much to disclose and when to hold back... The book is a love letter to her mother, whose warmth, articulacy and survival instincts shine through."" --The Guardian ""One of the most compelling memoirs of recent years, a book with as many twists and turns as any mystery, a family history of great emotional resonance... It's an extraordinary story, and an even better book."" --The Los Angeles Times ""Laura Cumming's tale of pictures, secrets and the strange disappearance of her mother is an outstanding achievement... Enthralling... Much more than a search for truth. It is a moving, many-sided human story of great depth and tenderness, and a revelation of how art enriches life. In short, a masterpiece."" --Sunday Times (UK)"

"Praise for Thunderclap ""Thunderclap combines first-rate art history with deeply felt memoir . . . A defiant aesthete, Cumming's gentle, meditative prose is itself an evocation of the hushed world of the art she loves. Her writing is soft and Sebaldian, with long, lulling sentences. Thunderclap does what Fabritius's sibylline scenes do: It does not redescribe so much as reimagine. Good criticism, like good art, does not leave the world intact. It, too, provides a shimmering new place where we can live and look."" --Becca Rothfeld, The Washington Post ""A lustrous meditation on the lives and after-lives of artists...with a novelist's pace, a critic's eye, a daughter's heart."" --Financial Times *Best Summer Books of 2023* ""Through spellbinding storytelling, Thunderclap is as deftly told as any thriller. It is also an astonishingly rich book about the glories that are revealed to us when we look at great paintings with careful attention, and an open heart. How a work of art can suddenly open our eyes in a thunderclap of clarity."" --The Bookseller (UK) ""Cumming [is] a writer of exceptional acuity, responsiveness, and poetic grace. With stellar reproductions accompanying Cumming's vibrant memories and deep musings, [Thunderclap] is an incisive and eye-opening, fascinating and amusing, loving and grateful chronicle."" --Booklist, Starred Review ""A tender homage to art, Cumming melds memoir, art history, and biography in an elegant, beautifully illustrated meditation on art, desire, imagination, and memory. From shards of evidence, Cumming has created a nuanced portrait of an enigmatic artist whose works have profoundly affected her. Moving reflections rendered in precise, radiant prose."" --Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review ""In this vivid history of the golden age of Dutch painting and elegant and luminous work, Cumming writes with deep feeling and knowledge about how 'pictures can shore you up, remind you who you are and what you stand for.' Art lovers will be enthralled."" --Publishers Weekly ""There's a passionate energy in this book, a dexterity of description and narrative and a sensitivity to the subtleties of painting and personal memory that leaves you utterly breathless and transfixed. You are never going to read a better book about the experience of art--and of love."" --Philip Hoare, author of Albert and the Whale: Albrecht Dürer and How Art Imagines Our World ""A work at once generous and private (family love spills bright from the book) that shows us how it is to live and die, as a painter must, by light and dark and their transmission. Cumming reconsiders the lives of painters of the Golden Age of Dutch painting, most especially Carel Fabritius, whose brief, sad life and few works she summons . . . in prose that shines."" --Candia McWilliam, author of What to Look for in Winter: A Memoir in Blindness ""A paragon of staggering insight and exquisite beauty. Delicate, exact, visionary, personal."" --Keggie Carew, author of Beastly: The 40,000-Year Story of Animals and Us ""An intimate and compelling investigation of the art of memory, and what survives of us."" --Nancy Campbell, author of Fifty Words for Snow Praise for The Vanishing Velázquez ""A sumptuous, impressively erudite effort by Laura Cumming, the art critic at the Observer, in London, to retrace Snare's attempts to determine the painting's elusive pedigree. But it's a good deal more than that... it's extremely accomplished -- a gleaming work of someone at the peak of her craft."" --Jennifer Senior, The New York Times ""Superb and original... This enthralling book is about what it means to create art so luminous that others would fight just to get close to it."" --Bee Wilson, The Sunday Times ""Cumming writes with deep feeling, critical expertise and lovely prose."" --Shelf Awareness ""Enchanting."" --The Boston Globe ""As compelling and entertaining as a detective novel, this is an engaging book... Ms Cumming paints a beguiling picture of lives lived for art."" --The Economist Praise for On Chapel Sands (formerly titled FIVE DAYS GONE) ""This is an incredible, and incredibly unusual, book about family, secrets, the ruinous sexual shame and hypocrisy of the first half of the English twentieth century. It's one of the best memoirs I have ever read... There is so much about [Five Days Gone] that moves; there is so much about it that educates. It is, and will remain a favorite, to be re-read one day, to be recommended to anyone who will listen."" --The Believer ""Vivid."" --The New Yorker ""Brilliant... Cumming is adept in knowing how much to disclose and when to hold back... The book is a love letter to her mother, whose warmth, articulacy and survival instincts shine through."" --The Guardian ""One of the most compelling memoirs of recent years, a book with as many twists and turns as any mystery, a family history of great emotional resonance... It's an extraordinary story, and an even better book."" --The Los Angeles Times ""Laura Cumming's tale of pictures, secrets and the strange disappearance of her mother is an outstanding achievement... Enthralling... Much more than a search for truth. It is a moving, many-sided human story of great depth and tenderness, and a revelation of how art enriches life. In short, a masterpiece."" --Sunday Times (UK)"

"Praise for Thunderclap ""In this vivid history of the golden age of Dutch painting and elegant and luminous work, Cumming writes with deep feeling and knowledge about how 'pictures can shore you up, remind you who you are and what you stand for.' Art lovers will be enthralled."" --Publishers Weekly ""[Through] spellbinding storytelling, Thunderclap is as deftly told as any thriller. It is also an astonishingly rich book about the glories that are revealed to us when we look at great paintings with careful attention, and an open heart. How a work of art can suddenly open our eyes in a thunderclap of clarity."" --The Bookseller (UK) ""A tender homage to art, Cumming melds memoir, art history, and biography in an elegant, beautifully illustrated meditation on art, desire, imagination, and memory. From shards of evidence, Cumming has created a nuanced portrait of an enigmatic artist whose works have profoundly affected her. Moving reflections rendered in precise, radiant prose."" --Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review Praise for The Vanishing Velázquez ""A sumptuous, impressively erudite effort by Laura Cumming, the art critic at the Observer, in London, to retrace Snare's attempts to determine the painting's elusive pedigree. But it's a good deal more than that... it's extremely accomplished -- a gleaming work of someone at the peak of her craft."" --Jennifer Senior, The New York Times ""Superb and original... This enthralling book is about what it means to create art so luminous that others would fight just to get close to it."" --Bee Wilson, The Sunday Times ""Cumming writes with deep feeling, critical expertise and lovely prose."" --Shelf Awareness ""Enchanting."" --The Boston Globe ""As compelling and entertaining as a detective novel, this is an engaging book... Ms Cumming paints a beguiling picture of lives lived for art."" --The Economist Praise for On Chapel Sands (formerly titled FIVE DAYS GONE) ""This is an incredible, and incredibly unusual, book about family, secrets, the ruinous sexual shame and hypocrisy of the first half of the English twentieth century. It's one of the best memoirs I have ever read... There is so much about [Five Days Gone] that moves; there is so much about it that educates. It is, and will remain a favorite, to be re-read one day, to be recommended to anyone who will listen."" --The Believer ""Vivid."" --The New Yorker ""Brilliant... Cumming is adept in knowing how much to disclose and when to hold back... The book is a love letter to her mother, whose warmth, articulacy and survival instincts shine through."" --The Guardian ""One of the most compelling memoirs of recent years, a book with as many twists and turns as any mystery, a family history of great emotional resonance... It's an extraordinary story, and an even better book."" --The Los Angeles Times ""Laura Cumming's tale of pictures, secrets and the strange disappearance of her mother is an outstanding achievement... Enthralling... Much more than a search for truth. It is a moving, many-sided human story of great depth and tenderness, and a revelation of how art enriches life. In short, a masterpiece."" --Sunday Times (UK)"

"Praise for The Vanishing Velázquez ""A sumptuous, impressively erudite effort by Laura Cumming, the art critic at the Observer, in London, to retrace Snare's attempts to determine the painting's elusive pedigree. But it's a good deal more than that... it's extremely accomplished -- a gleaming work of someone at the peak of her craft."" --Jennifer Senior, The New York Times ""Superb and original... This enthralling book is about what it means to create art so luminous that others would fight just to get close to it."" --Bee Wilson, The Sunday Times ""Cumming writes with deep feeling, critical expertise and lovely prose."" --Shelf Awareness ""Enchanting."" --The Boston Globe ""As compelling and entertaining as a detective novel, this is an engaging book... Ms Cumming paints a beguiling picture of lives lived for art."" --The Economist Praise for On Chapel Sands (formerly titled FIVE DAYS GONE) ""This is an incredible, and incredibly unusual, book about family, secrets, the ruinous sexual shame and hypocrisy of the first half of the English twentieth century. It's one of the best memoirs I have ever read... There is so much about [Five Days Gone] that moves; there is so much about it that educates. It is, and will remain a favorite, to be re-read one day, to be recommended to anyone who will listen."" --The Believer ""Vivid."" --The New Yorker ""Brilliant... Cumming is adept in knowing how much to disclose and when to hold back... The book is a love letter to her mother, whose warmth, articulacy and survival instincts shine through."" --The Guardian ""One of the most compelling memoirs of recent years, a book with as many twists and turns as any mystery, a family history of great emotional resonance... It's an extraordinary story, and an even better book."" --The Los Angeles Times ""Laura Cumming's tale of pictures, secrets and the strange disappearance of her mother is an outstanding achievement... Enthralling... Much more than a search for truth. It is a moving, many-sided human story of great depth and tenderness, and a revelation of how art enriches life. In short, a masterpiece."" --Sunday Times (UK) Praise for Thunderclap ""Cumming shows us what a painting can come to mean and how it can change your clarity of sight in a thunderclap; but also why great art and great artists survive the fleetingness and fragility of human seeing... [A] thrilling marvel of a book. Savour each and every sentence..."" --The Bookseller (UK) ""A tender homage to art, Cumming melds memoir, art history, and biography in an elegant, beautifully illustrated meditation on art, desire, imagination, and memory. From shards of evidence, Cumming has created a nuanced portrait of an enigmatic artist whose works have profoundly affected her. Moving reflections rendered in precise, radiant prose."" --Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review"

"Praise for Thunderclap ""If you haven't yet read Thunderclap by Laura Cumming--a brilliant exploration of Carl Fabritius, Vermeer and survival and loss--rush out and buy it. By far the best book on art of the Netherlands that I've read."" --Edmund de Waal, author of The Hare with Amber Eyes and Letters to Camondo ""Laura Cumming has fashioned a book that combines memoir, art criticism and history to illuminating effect."" --New York Times Book Review ""Wonderous...with Cumming's Proust-like meditations on time never to be recovered and art never to be produced, its thunderclap still echoes in my ears."" --Wall Street Journal ""Genre-defying . . . By weaving together vivid evocations of ones that move her with brief biographies of the men and women who painted them, she invites us to share that love. Like all good elegists, Cumming brings the dead to life in the very act of mourning them."" --New York Times Book Review ""Thunderclap is a glorious tribute to the two men who showed her the truth of the notion that paintings offer 'a land in themselves, a society, a place to be.'"" --The Economist ""Cumming writes with the sureness of carefully laid paint. This is not art historical scholarship of the academic kind. It is an emotionally informed approach to art... She brings Carel Fabritius out of the shadows, making us see why he is so much more than the missing link in someone else's story."" --The Guardian ""Thunderclap combines first-rate art history with deeply felt memoir . . . A defiant aesthete, Cumming's gentle, meditative prose is itself an evocation of the hushed world of the art she loves."" --The Washington Post ""A lustrous meditation on the lives and after-lives of artists...with a novelist's pace, a critic's eye, a daughter's heart."" --Financial Times *Best Summer Books of 2023*"

Praise for The Vanishing Velazquez A sumptuous, impressively erudite effort by Laura Cumming, the art critic at the Observer, in London, to retrace Snare's attempts to determine the painting's elusive pedigree. But it's a good deal more than that... it's extremely accomplished -- a gleaming work of someone at the peak of her craft. --Jennifer Senior, The New York Times Superb and original... This enthralling book is about what it means to create art so luminous that others would fight just to get close to it. --Bee Wilson, The Sunday Times Cumming writes with deep feeling, critical expertise and lovely prose. --Shelf Awareness Enchanting. --The Boston Globe Extremely accomplished -- a gleaming work of someone at the peak of her craft. --Jennifer Senior, The New York Times As compelling and entertaining as a detective novel, this is an engaging book... Ms Cumming paints a beguiling picture of lives lived for art. --The Economist Praise for On Chapel Sands (formerly titled FIVE DAYS GONE) This is an incredible, and incredibly unusual, book about family, secrets, the ruinous sexual shame and hypocrisy of the first half of the English twentieth century. It's one of the best memoirs I have ever read... There is so much about [Five Days Gone] that moves; there is so much about it that educates. It is, and will remain a favorite, to be re-read one day, to be recommended to anyone who will listen. --The Believer Vivid. --The New Yorker Brilliant... Cumming is adept in knowing how much to disclose and when to hold back... The book is a love letter to her mother, whose warmth, articulacy and survival instincts shine through. --The Guardian One of the most compelling memoirs of recent years, a book with as many twists and turns as any mystery, a family history of great emotional resonance... It's an extraordinary story, and an even better book. --The Los Angeles Times Laura Cumming's tale of pictures, secrets and the strange disappearance of her mother is an outstanding achievement... Enthralling... Much more than a search for truth. It is a moving, many-sided human story of great depth and tenderness, and a revelation of how art enriches life. In short, a masterpiece. --Sunday Times (UK)

"Praise for Thunderclap ""[Through] spellbinding storytelling, Thunderclap is as deftly told as any thriller. It is also an astonishingly rich book about the glories that are revealed to us when we look at great paintings with careful attention, and an open heart. How a work of art can suddenly open our eyes in a thunderclap of clarity."" --The Bookseller (UK) ""A tender homage to art, Cumming melds memoir, art history, and biography in an elegant, beautifully illustrated meditation on art, desire, imagination, and memory. From shards of evidence, Cumming has created a nuanced portrait of an enigmatic artist whose works have profoundly affected her. Moving reflections rendered in precise, radiant prose."" --Kirkus Reviews, Starred Review Praise for The Vanishing Velázquez ""A sumptuous, impressively erudite effort by Laura Cumming, the art critic at the Observer, in London, to retrace Snare's attempts to determine the painting's elusive pedigree. But it's a good deal more than that... it's extremely accomplished -- a gleaming work of someone at the peak of her craft."" --Jennifer Senior, The New York Times ""Superb and original... This enthralling book is about what it means to create art so luminous that others would fight just to get close to it."" --Bee Wilson, The Sunday Times ""Cumming writes with deep feeling, critical expertise and lovely prose."" --Shelf Awareness ""Enchanting."" --The Boston Globe ""As compelling and entertaining as a detective novel, this is an engaging book... Ms Cumming paints a beguiling picture of lives lived for art."" --The Economist Praise for On Chapel Sands (formerly titled FIVE DAYS GONE) ""This is an incredible, and incredibly unusual, book about family, secrets, the ruinous sexual shame and hypocrisy of the first half of the English twentieth century. It's one of the best memoirs I have ever read... There is so much about [Five Days Gone] that moves; there is so much about it that educates. It is, and will remain a favorite, to be re-read one day, to be recommended to anyone who will listen."" --The Believer ""Vivid."" --The New Yorker ""Brilliant... Cumming is adept in knowing how much to disclose and when to hold back... The book is a love letter to her mother, whose warmth, articulacy and survival instincts shine through."" --The Guardian ""One of the most compelling memoirs of recent years, a book with as many twists and turns as any mystery, a family history of great emotional resonance... It's an extraordinary story, and an even better book."" --The Los Angeles Times ""Laura Cumming's tale of pictures, secrets and the strange disappearance of her mother is an outstanding achievement... Enthralling... Much more than a search for truth. It is a moving, many-sided human story of great depth and tenderness, and a revelation of how art enriches life. In short, a masterpiece."" --Sunday Times (UK)"

Author Information

Laura Cumming has been the art critic of The Observer (London) since 1999. Previously, she was arts editor of The New Statesman (UK), literary editor of The Listener (UK), and deputy editor of Literary Review. She is a former columnist for The Herald (Scotland) and has contributed to the Evening Standard (London), The Guardian, L'Express, and Vogue. Her book The Vanishing Velazquez was a New York Times bestseller, a Wall Street Journal Best Book of the Year, winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and was longlisted for the Bailie Gifford Prize.

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