The Barbizon School The Origins Of Impressionism

The key painters associated with the Barbizon School - Corot, Millet, Rousseau and Courbet - are among the finest landscape artists of the nineteenth century. From their base at the village of Barbizon in the Forest of Fontainebleau, just outside Paris, they painted nature as they saw it, anticipating many of the techniques and effects of Impressionism. In this survey Steven Adams re-evaluates French landscape painting in the half-century before Impressionism, placing this 'return to nature' against the background of the rapid industrialization and political crises of the period.

"This handsome publication, which accompanies a major exhibition at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, is a lively and engaging account of the artistic scene in Paris in the 1860s, the years that witnessed the beginnings of Impressionism. For the first time the interactions and relationships among the group of painters who became known as the Impressionists are examined without the overworn art historical polarities commonly evoked: academic versus avant-garde, classicist versus romantic, realist versus impressionist. A host of strong personalities contributed to this history, and their style evolved into a new way of looking at the world. These artists wanted above all to give an impression of truth and to have an impact on or even to shock the public. And they wanted to measure up to or surpass their elders. This complex and rich environment is presented here - the grand old men and the young turks encounter each other, the Salon pontificates, and the new generation moves fitfully ahead, benignly but always with determination." "Origins of Impressionism gives a day-by-day, year-by-year study of the genesis of an epoch-making style." "Bibliographies and provenances are provided for each of the almost two hundred works in the exhibition, and there is an illustrated chronology. With more than two hundred superb colorplates, this informative survey is an essential work for both the general reader and the scholar."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Published on the occasion of a series of exhibitions that will travel throughout North America, Europe, and Asia from Feb. 2011 to Feb. 2014.

A comprehensive, accessible, and richly illustrated guide to impressionism—the perennially popular artistic movement that led to the radical renewal of Western art. Monet, Renoir, Degas, Rodin, Cezanne, Van Gogh, and the other Impressionist artists burst onto the art scene in the second half of the nineteenth century, creating shock waves with their rebellious rejection of the academy’s strict rules dictating subject matter, style, and even color. Their art, labeled impressionism, coincided with the Industrial Revolution, when the world was suddenly jettisoned into modernity. The young artists who gave rise to the movement confronted public disdain and oppression in Europe, but were applauded overseas for their radically contemporary aesthetic. This complete and accessible guide renews and refreshes conventional views on impressionism by placing this seminal moment in art in its historical context. Emblematic masterpieces are examined with a focus on each detail, allowing a deeper understanding and appreciation of the artworks. Biographies of all the major artists of the movement provide insight about their life and significant works, and period photographs illustrate this incredibly rich and exciting time in art history. Organized thematically, the guide includes chapters on photography, fashion, female impressionists, exhibitions, galleries and dealers, writers, the movement’s influence on later artists, and recurrent impressionist themes including leisure activities, the garden, the city, and industry. Replete with illustrations and numerous firsthand accounts and quotations, this book recounts a story of emancipation.

More than 100 works by artists such as Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796-1875), Théodore Rousseau (1812-1867), Jean-François Millet (1814-1875), Claude Monet (1840-1926), Gustave Le Gray (1820-1884), and Eugène Cuvelier (1837-1900) explore the French phenomenon of plein-air (open-air) painting and photography in the region of Fontainebleau, a pilgrimage site for aspiring landscape artists. The forest also inspired a new school of landscape photography, as figures such as Gustave Le Gray and Eugène Cuvelier, working side by side with painters, explored the camera's potential to reveal nature in a fresh and unadorned manner. The exhibition also includes 19th-century artists' equipment and tourist ephemera.

Théodore Rousseau (1812–1867), arguably the most important French landscape artist of the mid-nineteenth century and a leader of the so-called Barbizon School, occupies a crucial moment of transition from the idealizing effects of academic painting to the radically modern vision of the Impressionists. He was an experimental artist who rejected the traditional historical, biblical, or literary subject matter in favor of “unruly nature,” a Romantic naturalism that confounded his contemporaries with its “bizarre” compositional and coloristic innovations. Lavishly illustrated and thoroughly documented, this volume includes five essays by experts in the field. Scott Allan and Édouard Kopp alternately examine Rousseau’s diverse techniques and working procedures as a painter and as a draftsman, as well as his art’s mixed economic and critical fortunes on the art market and at the Salon. Line Clausen Pedersen’s essay focuses on Mont Blanc Seen from La Faucille, Storm Effect, an early touchstone for the artist and a spectacular example of the Romantic sublime in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek’s collection. This catalogue accompanies an eponymous exhibition on view at the J. Paul Getty Museum from June 21 to September 11, 2016, and at the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek from October 13, 2016, to January 8, 2017.

Even though France is the birthplace of Impressionism, German artists also played a crucial role in shaping this style of painting. This book examines the work of the three great German painters of the late 19th and early 20th century: Max Liebermann, Lo