For Laura Cumming, Dutch art is a placid paradise with the countdown to a cataclysm ticking away in the background. The immaculately swept streets and waxed floors in the paintings, the thin ice that supports a crowd of skaters in a frozen winter, the churches that are containers for mellow light and silence – all are instantly annihilated by the big bang of the book’s title. The Delft Thunderclap in 1654 was the detonation of 40 tonnes of gunpowder, stored for the city’s defence in the cellar of a former convent and probably set alight by a spark when a guard turned his key in a rusty lock or swung his lantern carelessly. Buildings imploded, and numberless people were crushed by the rubble. As if still reeling from an aftershock, Cumming is left trying to balance the safety or sanctity of art against the accidental violence of life, both on that day in the 17th century and in her personal experience of rupture and irreparable loss.
