Accessibility Tools

  • Content scaling 100%
  • Font size 100%
  • Line height 100%
  • Letter spacing 100%
Print this page

Out of Time: The Vexed Life of Georg Tintner by Tanya Buchdahl Tintner

by
September 2011, no. 334

Out of Time: The Vexed Life of Georg Tintner by Tanya Buchdahl Tintner

UWA Publishing, $39.95 pb, 448 pp

Out of Time: The Vexed Life of Georg Tintner by Tanya Buchdahl Tintner

by
September 2011, no. 334

A cluttered portrait inevitably diminishes its subject. I am thinking, in particular, of Archduke Leopold Wilhelm in his gallery in Brussels, by David Teniers the Younger, in which the Habsburg aristocrat is like an ant among his scores of pictures. This happens with biographies, too. A satisfying example is far more than an expansion of the subject’s curriculum vitae or a thorough examination of his appointment diary. When the author has strong feelings (as a widow inevitably does), the problem is aggravated. This new biography – of an extraordinary musician who might, in different circumstances, have contributed far more to Australia than he was allowed to do – is both partisan and prolix, and is as littered with quotidian details as the Teniers painting is with canvases. In both cases, these objects and details are too small to engage our attention usefully or thoroughly.

John Carmody reviews 'Out of Time: The Vexed Life of Georg Tintner' by Tanya Buchdahl Tintner

Out of Time: The Vexed Life of Georg Tintner

by Tanya Buchdahl Tintner

UWA Publishing, $39.95 pb, 448 pp

From the New Issue

You May Also Like