Memoir and Art

I had an interesting conversation with a friend recently about how many wonderful memoirs are out there in the world. I personally gravitate towards memoirs written by artists and writers because they often include so much life wisdom, including what is only hinted at or left unsaid. Chronological accounts of lives with all the facts are not as interesting to me as authors who dip in and out of time frames always with the perspective of lived experience and knowledge.

I also got thinking about memoir and art and how if you create some form of art, you are by default putting part of yourself, past, present and future into the work. While not as obvious (or possibly as brilliant) as, for example the self portrait memoirs of Rembrandt, something of your history and your current experience and future dreams are integrated into the work.

I have just finished Laura Cummings’ beautiful Thunderclap- A Memoir on Life, Art and Sudden Death. The book is dedicated to her artist father James Cumming and an artist of the Dutch Golden Age Carel Fabritius, he of The Goldfinch fame. They are both are an integral part of her musings on her own life, the nature of art, time and death. Fabritius himself was a victim of the terrible gunpowder explosion in Delft in 1654 which she compares to the more recent tragedy in Beirut. Scientists have been able to prove The Goldfinch was drying in his studio as the rest of his house collapsed on top of him.

Other admired memoirs read recently are
The Hero of This Book by Elizabeth McCracken and A Life in Light by Mary Pipher.

While not memoirs, I also loved Normal Women by Phillipa Gregory and Shakespeare was A Woman and Other Heresies by Elizabeth Winkler. All are in the library.

Good reading everyone!