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Title: |
Woman Behind the Painter |
| Sub-title: |
The Diaries of Rosalie, Mrs. James Clarke Hook |
Search Result:
| By (author): |
Rosalie Hook Edited by: Juliet McMaster |
| ISBN10-13: |
088864437X : 9780888644374 |
| Format: |
Paperback |
| Pages: |
352 |
| Weight: |
.680 Kg. |
| Published: |
The University of Alberta Press - March 2006 |
| List Price: |
38.99 Pounds Sterling |
| Availability: |
Out of Print
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| Subjects: |
Individual artists, art monographs : Biography: general |
| Rosalie Hook's diaries of her activities at home and abroad with her painter husband, James Clarke Hook, provide a fascinating window on the Victorian art world. In her long marriage to Hook, Rosalie, herself an artist, recorded not only the striking events of their memorable two-year sojourn in Italy at the time of the Risorgimento, but kept a day-to-day record of their domestic and professional lives through five decades. Woman Behind the Painter comes richly illustrated with the Hooks' photographs, sketches, and splendid paintings. The Italy Diary is a full narrative, written with vivid details of their travel to the St. Bernard Pass and to Florence, Rome, Naples, Parma and Venice, and ending with the Hooks' harrowing homeward journey in an ill-equipped vessel between Venice and Gibraltar. The Silverbeck Diary is a much slenderer document, but it covers many more years. In this diary, Rosalie recorded the movements and professional doings of the Hook family and their dealings with artist friends. Juliet McMaster's biographical and historical introduction and notes make for lively reading while she examines the Hooks' cultural experiences in the turbulent scene of excitement and revolution in Italy, their busy professional life among such contemporary artists as Samuel Palmer, F.G. Stephens, Millais, Holman Hunt, Alfred Hunt, Birket Foster, and others. Juliet McMaster is Professor Emerita in English at the University of Alberta and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. As a descendant of the Hook family, she has unique access to family archives, including paintings, sketchbooks, albums, and the manuscripts of these diaries. |
| Table of Contents: |
| The Italy Diary, 1846-1848 -- The Way to Florence; Florence; The Way to Rome; Rome; The Way to Naples; Naples; Back to Florence; The Way to Parma; Venice; Homeward Bound. The Silverbeck Diary, 1853-1896. |
| Reviews: |
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"Before me sit two diaries by women artists. One is by Rosalie Hook, a painter in her own right, written when she went to Italy with her new husband, James Hook (who would become a member of the Royal Academy) in the historically significant years 1846-48. This handsome edition with colour illustrations and photographs, carefully prepared by her descendent Juliet McMaster, also includes a less verbose diary covering her years at home in England from 1853 to 1896.... Art persists as a preoccupation in both diaries, but the women develop very different relationships to art and artists.... Hook's diary will be read primarily by those who wish to peek into the Victorian circle she inhabited, which included artists such as John Millais, Frederick Stephens, Frederick Leighton, and William Holman Hunt. Knowing this, McMaster cleverly created an illustrated artists' index at the back of the book with references to the day of their appearance in the diaries." Kathryn Carter, UTQ, Winter 2008
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"Presenting the full narrative details of Rosalie Hook's domestic partnership with her artist husband, Woman Behind The Painter begins with the fifth day after the young couples' marriage in August of 1846, and continues through their travels to May of 1848. Hallmarked with her vivid and tangible dialogue, enhanced throughout with both colour and B/W illustrations,.Woman Behind The Painter is very highly recommended for Women's Studies, Art history, and Travel Diary supplemental reading lists and academic reference collections." Michael J. Carson, the Midwest Book Review, May 1 2006.
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"Professor McMaster has done a brilliant job of blending the diaries of Rosalie wife of the painter, James Hook, with multiple examples of his work. The diaries record the 1800's Italian art world, particularly the world of the expatriate painters, such as Foster, Millais, Palmer, and the Hunts. Artists will enjoy seeing the lives of those in their profession as seen by an intimate. It is a whole new concept in the enjoyment and study of art." Ron McIsaac, Island NEWS, Jun 14, 2006.
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"...the lengthy introduction shows to good effect Juliet McMaster's energetic and direct writing style, ideal for explaining complicated truths. McMaster's introduction is crucial for understanding the significance of the diary and its writer." Kathryn Carter, University of Toronto Quarterly, Winter 2008
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"...This diary has now become the heart of an exhaustive look at her life by Juliet McMaster, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and a descendant of Rosalie, who has divided the book almost equally into three parts: her own introduction, which gives historical and social background and needed information on James; "The Italy Diary," in which Rosalie writes with clarity, the observant eye of an artist, and a humour that can be caustic; and "The Silverbeck Diary," named after the couple's estate in England. Rosalie's very brief entries in this last diary are crammed with references to painting trips, visiting artists, resident animals, nursing lessons, "packing paintings for Chicago," jam-making, varnishing days, and such odd notes as "had 500 fish from Andrews" and "picked up a balloon from Paris" (explained in McMaster's intriguing footnote). The few colour plates include Millais's portrait of James and an oil by Rosalie that may make the reader wistful for her abandoned artistic career. There are also many black and white sketches, mostly by James, and several portraits by the Hook sons with the newly developed camera. There are footnotes, maps, an index of artists, a general index, and family trees. At first glance, it may look intimidating to the general reader. With patience, it becomes an absorbing and personal look at mid-19th-century artistic, social, and political history." - Pauline Carey
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