The Art of Contemporary English Culture

By George H. Gilpin

St. Martin’s Press, New York, and Macmillan Press, London (1991)

Description

The Art of Contemporary English Culture is a pioneering effort to define the culture expressed in the literature and art of England between 1939 and the present. No previous book exists that broadly explores such values and aesthetic strategies and identifies the canon of work emerging from contemporary English civilization. Gilpin addresses the general reader with an interest in history and society as well as the scholar seeking a chart to a distinctly new intellectual territory; he uses examples from literature, criticism, art, architecture, and popular music to articulate the national identity of contemporary Britain. Included are discussions of writers George Orwell, Harold Pinter, Graham Greene, Alan Sillitoe, John Osborne, Anthony Burgess, Robert Graves, Evelyn Waugh, Ted Hughes, Doris Lessing and John Fowles; critics Raymond Williams, F.R. Leavis and C.P. Snow; artists Henry Moore, Francis Bacon, Laura Knight, Richard Hamilton and Peter Blake; architects Alison and Peter Smithson and James Sterling; and the Beatles. Gilpin describes how these figures deal with new psychologies, a changed social order, and an expanded vision of the world.

· Hardcover: 222 + x pages; 16 black /white illustrations

· Publisher: St. Martin’s Press, New York, and Macmillan Press, London (1991)

· ISBN-13: 978-0312044961

· Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.7 inches