The Shining Sands, ISBN 1841147001 published 2008. A revised edition in new larger format
(first published 1994 and reprinted 1999)

The Shining Sands is a record of the colony of artists who gathered around Cornwall during the latter half of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth century. Through twelve chapters Cross chronicles the arrival of the numerous artists and discusses the various movements and their work.

Among the many artists Cross discusses in his study are: Lamorna Birch, Frank Bramley, Frank Dobson, Elizabeth Forbes, Stanhope Forbes, Norman Garstin, Thomas Gotch, Harold Harvey, Augustus John, Laura Knight, Walter Langley, Cedric Morris, Alfred Munnings, Ben Nicholson, John Park, Walter Sickert, Matthew Smith, Henry Scott Tuke, James McNeill Whistler, Christopher Wood, and Andres Zorn.

While this is clearly a well researched volume which makes interesting reading, it has what might be considered some serious flaws. Although the book is illustrated throughout, the chosen pictures frequently do not relate directly to the text; work by the artist being discussed might appear alongside the text, but often not the specific painting that is mentioned in the text. Conversely many of the pictures illustrated are not discussed or even mentioned in the text. When a specific picture is shown, the text does not indicate this, so unless it appears on the same page, which it often does not, the reader might miss this. To make matters worse there appears to be no reference to the illustrations in index, which itself is incomplete. There is also no bibliography as such but there is a short list of suggested further reading. Publication and source references are included in the text.

There are around 100 colour illustrations and as many again in black and white (the latter including many period photographs), but only few are more than half a page in size even when having a whole page to themselves, and many are quite small or even little more than a thumbnail. The impression is that the pictures have been added as an afterthought, and are there more as decoration rather than to advance the thoughts proffered in the text. This is a great shame as there are any beautiful paintings here demonstrating a dramatic change over the relatively short period of about half a century, but the potential impact of such is somewhat weakened by the generally small images. ( )