Framed

"As well as an Anglo-Saxonist, I’m also an art historian. The subject can sometimes be held at a distance for children, but the wonderful Cottrell-Boyce breaks down that divide in this brilliant book. Frank is a fabulous man, with a kind heart, who has helped me no end. “This excellent story allows children to connect with the beauty and significance of art” That he writes incredibly well for children just makes me love him all the more. Framed returns to historical accounts of masterpieces stored in Welsh mines as the source for inspiration for this excellent story, and it allows children to connect with the beauty and significance of art. While bodies, spirits, voices of individuals die and decay, the artworks they leave behind are traces that can still speak to us across the centuries. When an artist sits in front of a canvas and paints they are leaving behind a wealth of information about the time they live in and the person they are for later generations to decode. Art is as rewarding as literature for revealing insights into lost imaginations, but the fact that it involves all our senses, and is a physical object that has beaten the tides of time and survived while the individuals that made it have long perished, to me that makes art works actual witnesses of the past. What could be more exciting than having a chat with someone from history? Art allows us to do that!"