Thunderclap

Our big adventure of the day was a short trip to the marina for a few supplies.  A boat ride and a very welcome golf cart ride.   A few spurts of rain here and there.  Then sun.

So I’m thinking about this odd little goldfinch painting by Carel Fabritius which is an illustration in this wonderful book I’ve recently read.   Recommended by PaulaJ who delights in reading all the Booker and other book prize short lists and gives us excellent reviews.  Thunderclap was short listed for the Women’s Prize for Non Fiction.   Yes this is a used one but it’s fine…the heavy pages have a bit of a feel good shine and it’s filled with gorgeous art illustrations from the Dutch Golden Age..   Laura Cummings is a columnist and then art critic and she’s here exploring why there aren’t more paintings by Fabritius left in the world  (there are maybe 12?,)  as there were so very many  (a million?) from that period mid 17th C.,  Vermeer was younger and I think there are 34?) It’s part memoir (her father was a painter) and her musings of how art changes lives.   That in itself could be the thunderclap….as well as the gunpowder explosion in Delft in 1654 that killed Fabritius at age 32 and many others.,   I’d love to take a quick visit to Delft (Like PaulaJ and hubby did) which won’t happen but I will read this again!   ..it’s a real pleasure to look at a painting with her.

Might have to make more goldfinch art…..(Donna Tartt of course popularized the little painting in her pulitzer prize winning book, the Goldfinch)