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This fascinating book examines how artists in fin-de-siècle France dealt with four hotly debated issues in society: national decadence, crowds and mass unrest, religious imagery, and revenge against Germany.
This provocative study argues that some of the most inventive artwork of the 1890s was strongly influenced by the methods of experimental science and ultimately foreshadowed twentieth-century modernist practices. Looking at avant-garde figures such as Maurice Denis, Édouard Vuillard, August Strindberg, and Edvard Munch, Allison Morehead considers the conjunction of art making and experimentalism to illuminate how artists echoed the spirit of an increasingly explorative scientific culture in their work and processes. She shows how the concept of “nature’s experiments”—the belief that the study of pathologies led to an understanding of scientific truths, above all about the human mind...
"The vibrant late paintings of Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947) are considered by many to be among his finest achievements. Working in a small converted bedroom of his villa in the south of France, Bonnard suffused his late canvases with radiant Mediterranean light and dazzling color. Although his subjects were close at hand-usually everyday scenes taken from his immediate surroundings, such as the dining room table being set for breakfast, or a jug of flowers perched on the mantelpiece - Bonnard rarely painted from life. Instead, he preferred to make pencil sketches in small diaries and then rely on these, along with his memory, once in the studio." "This volume, which accompanies the first exhib...
Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) played a seminal role in Post-Impressionist France. In his writings and work, he favored emotional responses to nature over intellectual uses of lines, color, and composition. In 1888 he and Emile Bernard developed a new style called Synthetism. Three groups of Gauguin's symbolist followers—Pont Aven, Les Nabis, and Rose + Croix pursued and extended the Synthetist vision. This sourcebook focuses on the most prominent adherents of the three schools directly affected by Gauguin's symbolism. This is the first comprehensive, single-volume guide and bibliography of artists in these three important French avant-garde movements. This work covers the entire careers of 16 artists by providing biographical sketches, chronologies, citations to primary and secondary literature and exhibitions.
"This bibliography supplements the greatest of modern art bibliographies, Etta Arntzen and Robert Rainwater's Guide to the literature of art history (ALA, 1980)"--Preface.
One of the twentieth century’s greatest composers, Jean Sibelius (1865–1957) virtually stopped writing music during the last thirty years of his life. Recasting his mysterious musical silence and his undeniably influential life against the backdrop of Finland’s national awakening, Sibelius will be the definitive biography of this creative legend for many years to come. Glenda Dawn Goss begins her sweeping narrative in the Finland of Sibelius’s youth, which remained under Russian control for the first five decades of his life. Focusing on previously unexamined events, Goss explores the composer’s formative experiences as a Russian subject and a member of the Swedish-speaking Finnish...
This volume offers a brilliant re-reading of the representation of the human figure in the light of the Jewish experience, analyzing its appearance in the works of modernists such as Chagall, Freundlich, Lipchitz, Modigliani, Pissarro, Soutine, Zadkine and contemporary artists such as Lucian Freud, Alex Katz and Kitaj. For more than 2000 years, Jewish art explored specific themes, while blending with local cultures and aesthetics. At the turn of the 20th century a significant number of Jewish artists were influenced by western culture whilst remaining faithful to their heritages. This book is dedicated to the various aspects of their artistic endeavors - most notably the representation of the human face, a theme very close to their hearts -- that were influenced by their Jewish roots. Their take on this widely explored subject proved highly unusual: they used it to express love and sorrow, but also to fight nihilism. As the twentieth century saw the gradual vanishing of the human face in art and li
An exceptionally well-illustrated biography of Swiss born Canadian artist André Biéler (1896-1989) who is remembered for his paintings of rural Quebec, portraits of people and the organizations he founded.
This title was first published in 2002. 'Memory and Desire' is a lavishly illustrated account of the art world in Britain at the turn of the twentieth century. It calls upon rich resources of contemporary diaries, letters and art criticism, as well as the analysis of works of art to answer questions about how and why new artistic tendencies emerged and tastes changed. Eschewing the familiar narrative of an inevitable progress towards modernism, Kenneth McConkey considers a broad range of art and critical thinking in the period. Discussing the market for old master paintings, which rivalled those for modern art, and the question of how and why certain genres of art were particularly successful at the time, McConkey explores the detail and significance of contemporary taste. He draws upon the work of commercially successful painters such as John Singer Sargent, William Orpen, George Clausen, Alfred East, John Lavery and Philip Wilson Steer, and their critic-supporters to throw light upon current arguments about training, aesthetics, visual memory and the creation of new art. 'Memory and Desire' is a major contribution to our knowledge of this important period in British art.
Animals were a primary source of inspiration and creative stimulation for the Nabi painter Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947): the theme can be found in about a third of the 2,300 paintings created by the artist over the course of his lengthy career. Ubu, Ravageau, Black and Almond were the names of a few of the canine companions that appear in his work; his cats, though never thus identified by name, also frequently populate his canvases. The appearance of other animals, such as horses, fish, chickens and cows, further testify to Bonnard's fundamental affection for the creature world; but their presence in his paintings has never before been directly addressed. This fully illustrated book examines this secret theme running throughout Bonnard's oeuvre, and will prove a delightful revelation for fans of the intimiste master.