I thought this book was so inspiring that I immediately went out and ordered another of her works. She does a beautiful job writing about art and is everything I loved about my Art History minor.

I LOVED "Thunderclap"--Laura Cumming is an extremely engaging and fluid writer who drew me in from the first page and kept me curled up on my couch avidly reading for the next two days. I am always drawn to books that blend memoir with some specific field of study, whether it's English literature as in Rebecca Mead's "My Life in Middlemarch," or goshawk training as in Helen Macdonald's "H is for Hawk," and "Thunderclap"--an analysis of the art of the Dutch Golden Age in general, and that of Carel Fabritius in particular, mixed with some history of the period and memoir about Cumming's life as the daughter of Scottish painter James Cumming--is one of the best I've come across in this genre-bending group. No other writer has ever explained specific paintings for me as vividly and with such idiosyncratic similes as Cumming--I was riveted. Take, for example, her description of one of Dutch artist Adriaen Coorte's still lifes as "a stupdendous painting of five apricots, each an almost incandescent orange, processing bravely towards the cliffhanger of an edge. One leads out front, the others follow behind, with a single apricot propping up the stem of foliage above, like US marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima." Cumming doesn't just use her eyes to view a painting--she hears it as well, as when she describes the "long spiny shell poised on tiptoe" in another Coorte still life, whose "spines tick-tack along the stone, like Prufrock's claws at the bottom of the sea." Gorgeous!

At its heart, however, "Thunderclap" is the story of two artists who toiled in poverty and relative obscurity during lives cut short by tragedy: Carel Fabritius, who is now renowned for his painting of "The Goldfinch" as well as the scant others which survive, but who never achieved fame during his life, which ended at the age of 32 in the Delft gunpowder explosion that gives the book its title; and her father James Cumming, who suffered from a cancer which robbed him of an artist's precious sight in one eye before taking his life when he was only in his 60s. Cumming writes about both men with a beauty, tenderness and insight that suggests she knows not only her father intimately, but Fabritius, too, and after reading "Thunderclap," it's easy to believe that she does.

One last note: This is a beautiful book in so many ways. It is lavishly illustrated with color reproductions of the various paintings Cumming is referencing in a way that I really appreciated, but one that I don't think an e-book edition can do full justice to. I thank NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for providing me with an digital ARC of this title in return for my honest review, but I will be buying the hard copy of this book for myself and, I'm sure, many other people in the future.

Laura Cummings is a Scottish art critic. The story Laura Cummings tells in this book is a double biography/memoir. She reconstructs the lives of two people dear to her heart. One is a Dutch painter Carel Fabritius, Rembrandt’s pupil, known mostly for his paintings Goldfinch and The view of Delft; the other is the author’s father who was also an artist and a big influence in Laura's life. Laura shares that Fabritius is her favorite painter. His life was cut short in 1654 by an explosion of gun powder storage that wiped out good portion of the city of Delft. The best part of the book is Laura’s mesmerizing writing about art; her ability to look at art and share what it makes her think and feel is captivating. It's a book to savor for all art lovers, especially for those who enjoy Dutch art and introspective writing.

In 1654, the city of Delft was blasted by the explosion of a gunpowder store. It killed hundreds, destroyed and damaged many of the buildings. Among the dead was Carel Fabritius, painter of The Goldfinch, but Johannes Vermeer was spared. In Thunderclap: A Memoir of Art and Life and Sudden Death , art critic and historian Laura Cumming explores this event, these two artists and many other Dutch painters, while weaving in her own youthful reminiscences and her own fathers work and death.

Thunderclap is divided into three sections, each of these made up of essay-like entries that alternate with between many topics, such as the life and work of an artist, 17th century life, Cumming's life or that of her family, or the explosive event. As many of the sections reference specific artworks, the reader is provided with full color reproductions for the majority of the works mentioned. As the book begins with the description of A View of Delft, we are encouraged to view these works and tease out the details from our observations and Cumming's.

Across the book, Cumming is concerned with the frailty of life and question of legacy. In exploring the lives of the artists, she uses what sources are available, some lives more detailed due to their fame or the happenstance of what materials have survived to the present day. These are balanced with snippets of her own life. Traveling through the Netherlands as a youth, or the the formation of her family and her father's work as an artist. Especially in the beginning, Cumming notes that the paintings age differently from humans, as she herself changed across all her different visits to London's National Gallery.

We are not black slates, when we view something, we are bringing to bear all of our experiences and studies. We are moved by what resonates with that background and here Cumming's shares both her research and the what and whys of how art moves her.

A wonderfully vivid exploration of the legacy and meaning of art.