Creation
Artists, Gods & Origins
Peter Conrad
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| ‘Heady stuff … Conrad does not do dry or analytical. He does high energy …’ | | – RA Magazine |
| ‘Expansive and often electrifying … will appeal to both general and scholarly readers’ | | – Publishers Weekly |
| ‘… no one can come away from it without learning something thought-provoking, surprising and strange’ | | – The Literary Review |
| ‘Astounding … [an] endlessly to-be-reopened book’ | – The Times
Higher Education Supplement |
A book of breathtaking scope, in which the mystery of how the world began infolds in an epic narrative that sets the Gods against the world's great artists, their rivals in creative energy.
Despite the best efforts of scientists, theologians and aestheticians, creation and creativity both remain mysterious. How did our world begin? Where do we come from? And how can we understand or describe that obscure source we call imagination, from which works of art emerge?
Peter Conrad’s book investigates these mysteries, in a survey of cultural history that begins with the differing accounts of creation and advances to our own world, where creativity seems to have warped into a fierce delight in destruction.
He describes the long illness and eventual demise of the Christian God, and shows how artists and scientists were ready and eager to take over a creative role that was once a heavenly prerogative. At the same time, he probes the creative impulse of writers, painters and musicians, celebrating the audacity of the restless, rebellious beings who first questioned the limits placed on thoughts and dreams, supplemented nature with their own creations, and came to be known as artists.
See the Contents Page
Peter Conrad has taught English at Christ Church, Oxford, since 1973. One of the great cultural critics of our time, his many books on a wide range of subjects include Modern Times, Modern Places, which Thames & Hudson published to universal acclaim.
Also of interest:
Modern Times, Modern Places by Peter Conrad
At Home in Australia by Peter Conrad
Creation Myths
Enduring Creation: Art, Pain and Fortitude
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|  |  | | | | ISBN 0500513562 | | ISBN-13 978-0500513569 | | | | 23.4 x 16.9 cm | | Hardback | | 592pp | | 161 illustrations | | First published 2007 | | | | £24.95 | | | |  | | | | 
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