A painting previously withdrawn from auction will finally go under the hammer after experts confirmed they believe it is linked to the Brontë sisters.As usual, we would like to know more details about "the experts".
It was due to be the third in a hat-trick of items concerning the three literary siblings to be sold by the same auctioneer.
But the watercolour, believed to be painted by 19th-century English artist Sir Edwin Landseer, was withdrawn from the sale last month while auctioneers tried to track down a similar work by the same artist to check its links.
Jonathan Humbert, from JP Humbert Auctioneers in Northamptonshire, said the work will be offered for sale next week after experts confirmed it is by Landseer and is believed to show the Brontë sisters.
The work was previously attributed by a team from the National Portrait Gallery as well as four years of research by the vendor, but Mr Humbert said after further examination it is to be offered for sale and is expected to raise between £20,000 and £30,000.
He said: "We have spent quite some time trying to establish a link between Landseer and the Brontës and after cross referencing with other known pictures by Landseer, we are confident that we have a strong argument that this picture is as important as we hoped." (Source)
The Citizen (South Africa, where the film has just opened) doesn't like Andrea Arnold's Wuthering Heights very much:
Director Andrea Arnold could have named this adaptation of Emily Brontë’s 19th century classic “Withering Heights” – it’s packed with interminable shots of bleak, monochromatic countryside.Artlink likes it even less:
And yet, there’s a brittle beauty to this elemental world of wind and rain and muck that makes one pause and contemplate nature.
As a viewer, you may be rather confounded by the film. The liberties Arnold has taken might well offend Brontë purists, but then the original novel was received with some perplexity by the critics of its time.
The shifting moods of the rural Yorkshire landscape are as much a focus as the turbulent emotions of the piece’s central characters. Nature takes pride of place and the film offers a wildlife documentary-type effect, with dizzying camerawork that might give some viewers mild motion sickness.
While there is sparse dialogue and no music, the lovers’ world is far from silent, with the roar of the wind as it buffets the desolate plains a constant symphony. (...)
This is a film you need to be patient with if you are to appreciate its beauty. (Leigh-Anne Hunter)
The film embraces highly emotional issues such as domestic violence, racism and the cycle of abuse, yet one finds no empathy with any of the characters. One has great difficulty warming to them. In a feeble attempt to gives the version some bite, director Arnold plays around with the sparse dialogue by injecting a modern vernacular to the many exchanges. It’s all so self-consciously pretentious with its lingering shots of butterflies and birds, the howling wind through the tall grass, the constant site of mud everywhere and Heathcliff looking forlornly at the hills.The Independent is the positive exception:
This “withering” heights is one film where I couldn’t wait for the 129 minutes running time to end – it was excruciatingly bad. (Peter Feldman)
As refreshing as a dawn walk in winter on the Yorkshire moors, Andrea Arnold’s Wuthering Heights shows how 21st century cinema can – and should – go about boldly revitalising even the most familiar literary properties. (...)BizCommunity also mentions the South-African premiere of the film. Other reviews can be read on qulisty (in Polish), C7nema (in Portuguese), Полит-НН (in Russian) and Folkbladet (in Swedish).
The film’s audacious unconventionality and a cast headed by four unknowns make it a tough commercial sell. But such is the enduring power of Wuthering Heights that there’s no reason why director and co-writer Arnold’s third feature shouldn’t prove an art house success in the mould of her Fish Tank (2009). (...)
Arnold’s Wuthering Heights is her most successful and satisfying feature to date. Her only real misstep is the inclusion of a newly-commissioned, unmistakably modern-sounding song by popular British neo-folk band Mumford & Sons during the final moments and over the closing credits. (Theresa Smith)
"We’ll be kicking off our 'Vintage' theme with the legendary Jim Steinman’s “Paradise by the Dashboard Light." Rachel will do the solo, 'It’s All Com...'"The song was indeed inspired by Wuthering Heights, but the first version was not by Celine Dion but by Pandora's Box in 1989.
Rachel cuts him off. "'…Coming Back To Me Now'. One of Celine Dion’s most powerful ballads, inspired by Wuthering Heights." (Christie Keith)
Wall Street Journal reviews Gothicka by Victoria Nelson:
It is also the underpinning, though artfully concealed, of works such as the Brontës' "Jane Eyre" and "Wuthering Heights" (and even, though Ms. Nelson does not mention it, of an apparently much primmer text such as Jane Austen's "Pride and Prejudice"). Charlotte Brontë's refashioning of Mr. Rochester, from the dark anti-hero into a soulmate who delivers the heroine into "the journey of her true life," anticipates the explicit treatment of this theme in the"Twilight" romances: The demon lover Edward Cullen quite literally offers the heroine the "kiss of death." The twist is that, instead of reforming him, Bella Swan is fated, as Ms. Nelson puts it, "to find her true identity by dying and triumphantly joining him on a transformed dark side." (Elizabeth Lowry)The Miami Herald reviews John Irving's In One Person:
By the time he turns 15, Billy Abbott has developed an unfortunate habit of getting “crushes on the wrong people.” He is obsessed with Miss Frost, the suspiciously tall librarian with “broad shoulders” and “young, barely emerging breasts” who introduces him to Fielding and Brontë and Dickens. (Rene Rodriguez)And Lovely County Citizen reviews Vanessa Diffenbaugh The Language of Flowers:
Love and hope. Two things Diffenbaugh considers of great importance in her "other" career as both natural and foster mother, and two things missing from her protagonist's experience. As her novel, considered "a Jane Eyre for 2012," went to press, the author had concerns that some aspects of it would not be well received by those in the foster care industry. (C.D. White)The New Zealand Herald talks about books for all ages:
Or rather, I should say that this idea - that certain books break age barriers - is coming around again. As Colfer pointed out, 19th century books ostensibly for children like Treasure Island and Alice in Wonderland are considered unqualified classics. In the same Auckland Writers & Readers Festival session, fantasy author Emily Rodda suggested that Oliver Twist and Jane Eyre would be considered YA rather than adults' books, were they to be published for the first time today. But in the 19th century, everyone from children to grandmothers read those stories aloud to each other. (Janet McAllister)Louiville.com describes a local garden and... well, there are some problems identifying who wrote what:
Yew Dell Gardens in Crestwood, KY is a refuge of green beauty that will immediately put you at peace with yourself and the world at large. The perfume of roses hangs heavy in the air and the urge to sit a spell and read a Jane Eyre novel will seem so right you can’t explain it. (Julie Gross)We rather suspect this is not a metaliterary joke but exactly what it seems, a blunder.
Several news outlets mention how Paul Gordon has been honored by TheatreWorks:
TheatreWorks, the nationally-acclaimed theatre of Silicon Valley, presented its annual TheatreWorks Honors Gala. The event honorees were Chairman and Former CEO of Silicon Valley Bank Ken Wilcox and Tony-nominated Broadway composer Paul Gordon (Jane Eyre), both of whom have dedicated their lives to bringing forth vision, innovation, and creativity. The gala was held Saturday, May 12, 2012. (Broadway World)The Vancouver Sun talks about Victorian writers in general; My Favourite Things and More! reviews The Tenant of Wildfell Hall 1996; My Wonderland has some nice gifs from Jane Eyre 2011; La Sofitta di Camilla (in Italian) participates in Le Due Settimane delle Sorelle Brontë hosted by Cipria e Merletti (with other posts on Jane Eyre nowadays and Jane Eyre 2011); Smart Woman (in Romanian) posts about the Brontës; Writer's Block 23 has rediscovered Jane Eyre and JulzReads has just read it; Miss Drama posts in Portuguese about Wuthering Heights;
Treasured Tales for Young Adults interviews Eve Marie Mont, author of A Breath of Eyre. Finally, a curious exhibition of porcelain dolls inspiredy by literary characters in Chita (Zabaykalsky Krai, Russia):Всего в коллекции читинки Людмилы Травкиной более 20 кукол - среди них есть Эмма Бовари, Маргарет Шлегель, Джейн Эйр, Анна Каренина, Булгаковская Маргарита и многие другие героини известных литературных произведений. В своё время всех своих любимец читательница библиотеки собрала сама - они выпускались вместе с номерами журналов. (Zabinfo) (Translation)
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