Ebook: Children of Mercury: The Lives of the Painters

'Bucklow offers a deeply humane poetics of the life-cycle and artistic creativity that is enchanting and original' - Ulinka Rublack, author of The Astronomer and the Witch

'While there have been studies of prodigies and of aging artists, Spike Bucklow's book is distinctive in looking systematically at the periods in between.' - Michael Cole, author of Sofonisba's Lesson

Children of Mercury is a bold new account of the lives of pre-modern painters, viewed through the lens of the Seven Ages of Man, a widespread belief made famous in the 'All the world’s a stage' speech in Shakespeare's As You Like It. Spike Bucklow follows artists' lives from infancy through childhood, adolescence and adulthood to maturity, old age and death. He tracks how lives unfolded for both male and female painters, from the famous, like Michelangelo, through Artemisia Gentileschi and Mary Beale, to those who are now forgotten, like Jehan Gillemer. The book draws on historic biographies, artists' own writings and, uniquely, the physical evidence offered by their paintings.