Lighted Window, The: Evening Walks Remembered

Description

Homecoming, haunting, nostalgia, desire: these are some of the themes evoked by the beguiling motif of the lighted window in literature and art. In this innovative combination of place-writing, memoir and cultural study, Peter Davidson takes us on atmospheric walks through nocturnal cities in Britain, Europe and North America, and revisits the field paths of rural England. Surveying a wide range of material, the book extends, chronologically, from early romantic painting to contemporary fiction, and geographically, from the Low Countries to Japan. It features familiar lighted windows in English literature (in the works of poets such as Thomas Hardy and Matthew Arnold and in the novels of Virginia Woolf, Arthur Conan Doyle and Kenneth Grahame) and examines the painted nocturnes of James Whistler, John Atkinson Grimshaw and the ruralist Samuel Palmer. It also considers Japanese prints of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; German romanticism in painting, poetry and music; Proust and the painters of the French belle epoque; Rene Magritte's 'L'Empire des Lumieres'; and North American painters such as Edward Hopper and Linden Frederick. By interpreting the interactions of art, literature and geography around this evocative motif, Peter Davidson shows how it has inspired an extraordinary variety of moods and ideas, from the romantic period to the present day. 'Anyone who has felt the mystery, allure and sadness of lighted windows will find their perceptions heightened and new cultural vistas opened by this unusual and beautiful book. It's both vast and intimate in scope, taut with precise seeing and capacious in its leaps of association. Davidson inhabits the paintings he writes about, moving and feeling with them until there seems no border between pictures and life. Recognition and surprise mingle as we become wanderers in the nights of Europe, Asia and America. It's a journey to savour.' - Alexandra Harris 'Erudite, companionable, and hypnotically satisfying' - Financial Times

Peter Davidson is Senior Research Fellow of Campion Hall, University of Oxford. His previous books include 'The Idea of North' (2005) and 'The Last of the Light' (2015).

'This is an art-history and English-literature lesson rolled into one, best enjoyed in the glow of your own bedside lamp, ideally with a storm raging outside.' * Country Life * 'Davidson creates his own idiosyncratic, hybrid genre in which cultural history, nature writing and place writing are channelled through personal experience. ... [he is] an excellent guide not just along pavements and footpaths but around paintings too, teasing out shades of meaning. ... Imagination and memory, the book suggests, create their own lighted windows in the darkest of journeys and have the power to change the world around us.' * TLS * 'Erudite, companionable, and hypnotically satisfying.' * Financial Times * 'While it's beautiful to peruse, this is no coffee-table book but a beguiling work of academia and an excellent festive offering for anyone who has walked past a lighted window on a dark evening and wondered about the goings-on inside.' * The Field * 'There isn't a Faber Book of Windows at Night, but Davidson is certainly the man for the job and The Lighted Window is a sort of memoir of the thought processes that would have produced one.' * The Literary Review * 'A beautiful and timely book.' * Radio 4 Open Book * 'A must-read if you've ever been captivated by a glimpse into another life on your evening stroll.' * OX Magazine * 'Will evoke fond memories for any alumnus ... the book will banish away winter nights while evoking the anticipation of spring and summer.' * QUAD Magazine * 'A connoisseur of the crepuscular, the in-between zone dividing night and day, and all its electrifying implications. ... Winter cities, London nocturnes, northern townscapes ... These generate aesthetically significant representations within the boundaries of Peter Davidson's pungent and particular theme. He brings us some unexpected and enlightening assessments and observations, as his book proceeds on its scholarly and seductive way.' * Dublin Review of Books * 'In this gorgeous book, Peter Davidson heads out into Oxford at nightfall, to consider cities in winter and rural summer twilights that embrace the warmth of the day. ... Enchanting.' * The Simple Things *