![]() This is true, in various ways, of the often difficult lives of her other biographical subjects, whether she is uncovering the secrets that lie behind the ‘extraordinary protective armour’ in Ivy Compton-Burnett’s personality, or the damaging effects of Paul Scott’s alcoholism on his family life. And a revealing aside in the book refers to ‘the uncomfortable, disruptive, antisocial ways in which artists behave in fact’. She was surely able to do so precisely because she is not an art historian instead, with meticulous scholarship, she brilliantly brings to life the characters of the long struggling painter, his family and friends. ![]() ![]() In The Unknown Matisse (1998), the first volume of Hilary Spurling’s much-acclaimed biography of the painter, she quotes Matisse’s view that ‘Anyone attempting a portrait should above all approach the subject without preconceptions’. ![]()
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