Children of Mercury

Following “the seven ages of man” from infancy to death, an innovative retelling of the lives of premodern painters both famous and forgotten. Children of Mercury is a bold new account of the lives of premodern 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, an