Baroque Between the Wars

Baroque Between the Wars ... is a witty and elegant account of an alternative style in the arts ... this wide-ranging and hugely entertaining book perfectly combines aesthetic and social history. * Peter Parker, Books of the Year 2018, Times Literary Supplement *
The patterns that [Stevenson] contrived to weave out of subjects as widely dispersed as the Sitwells, Arthur Machen, Ronald Firbank and Coco Chanel were endlessly fascinating. * D.J. Taylor, Books of the Year 2018, Times Literary Supplement *
A beautifully written account of modern baroque in its many guises ... it is scholarly, diverting and fascinating, all at once: a bracing draught that genuinely fills a huge void, an essential read to understand a period in all its diversity. * James Stevens Curl, Times Higher Eucation *
Learned and thought-provoking ... Stevenson has encyclopaedic knowledge of the period and the style, in all its many forms. The book covers a glorious array of cultural activities ... Stevenson writes with gentle humour and a keen sense of the absurd. * Adrian Tinniswood, Literary Review *
Baroque Between the Wars draws its strength from Stevenson's omnivorous sourcing of material and her intellectual curiosity. * Tanya Harrod, Apollo *
exceptional * Clive Aslet, Country Life *
A fascinating, thought-provoking account of the arts in the 1920s and 1930s * The Tablet *
One of this book's greatest strengths is the author's original research across several disciplines ... [Stevenson] writes in clear, insightful prose ... This is essential reading that will, inter alia, explain you to yourself. * Ruth Guilding, The World of Interiors *
The book is welcome for its extensive examination of one of the most interesting moments in art and life of recent times. * David Platzer, The British Art Journal *
extraordinary ... Stevenson writes with admirable clarity and wit * Altair Brandon-Salmon, Cherwell *
The first thing to be said about this wonderfully funny, provocative, and endlessly fascinating book is that it covers a lot of ground. It presents a very large range of creative production through a series of short and eminently readable chapters. * Timothy Brittain-Catlin, Journal of Architecture *
Broad in scope, yet full of telling detail, this important study of the Baroque sensibility brilliantly illuminates a too-long-neglected era of artistic and cultural activity. * Stephen Calloway, author of Baroque Baroque: The Culture of Excess *
Stevenson's achievement is baroque in its richness and variety. Spanning the art forms, and bringing to new prominence the period's decorative taste-makers from Cecil Beaton to Elsa Schiaparelli, she turns a serious eye on the meanings of masquerade. The emphasis on art markets and circles of patronage contributes a wealth of new material to this thick-woven tapestry of ideas. * Alexandra Harris, Department of English Literature, University of Birmingham *
With the scholarship, humanity, and wit that made her Edward Burra biography so outstanding, Jane Stevenson presents a shimmering bouquet of connected essays, animating the ghosts of early twentieth-century fashion and frolic, that propose a serious alternative to modernism. * Alan Powers *