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French Impressionism (Art History)

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  1. Introduction
  2.  
  3. Impressionnisme (and its Anglophone cognate, “Impressionism”) was coined in 1874 to designate a group of painters who had formed a cooperative and exhibited their works in a small Parisian gallery. The group included Claude Monet, Edgar Degas, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Berthe Morisot, Camille Pissarro, Alfred Sisley, and Paul Cézanne, many of whom had worked together since the 1860s. The purpose of the exhibition was to present their paintings directly to the public and to provide an alternative to the government’s official exhibition, popularly called the “Salon.” Considered at the time to be the only significant venue for contemporary art, the annual Salon was also the dominant marketplace for contemporary art. Works were chosen by a jury, which in the early 1870s was widely criticized for the rigid conservatism of its tastes. The Impressionists’ decision to organize an exhibition independent of the Salon was a bold move—critics referred to it as “revolutionary”—that positioned them in opposition to the French art establishment. After 1874, the group organized seven more exhibitions, the last one in 1886. The participants changed with each exhibition, as Monet, Renoir, and Sisley ceased to believe in the efficacy of the independent shows and returned to the Salon, and as new members joined the group—most notably, Gustave Caillebotte in 1876 and Mary Cassatt in 1879. Also allied with the Impressionists was Frédéric Bazille, who had been an integral part of the group from the early 1860s until his death in the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. Also of most importance was Édouard Manet. Although he never exhibited with the Impressionists, preferring to send his works to the Salon, he had been very much part of the group since the 1860s. Because his paintings had greatly influenced those of the Impressionists, Manet was considered to be Impressionism’s founder and the group’s leader. In addition to denominating a particular group of artists, “Impressionism” also denotes a particular pictorial and painterly approach. In its purist form, the term indicates works that take their subjects from contemporary life and depict them in ways that suggest the fleetingness, the transiency of modern experience, using evanescent lighting effects, bold touches of color, and brush strokes that appear to have been applied rapidly.
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  5. General Overviews
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  7. For much of the 20th century, literature on Impressionism tended to view the movement in terms of specific artists and/or to analyze the paintings from a formalist perspective. A breakthrough came with Rewald’s studies—best seen in the fourth edition (Rewald 1973)—which shift the focus to the history of Impressionist group and the eight independent exhibitions its artists held between 1874 and 1886. Rewald’s extensive documentation of painters and paintings had a great impact on Impressionist studies, although the subtext to his analysis—a somewhat romantic narrative of a brave band of male artists struggling against a monolithic establishment—did not escape his critics. As happened in many academic disciplines, art history took new directions in the latter 20th century, when alternative methodologies offered further modes of inquiry. Shiff 1984 looks to 19th-century critics and analyzes the vocabulary they used to discuss Cézanne’s paintings. His highly original, densely conceptual study disputes both the stereotype of Impressionism as an objective style, devoid of affective components, and the idea that Impressionism came to an end in the mid-1880s. Moffett 1986 greatly extends the history of Impressionist exhibitions with essays that examine each exhibition in depth and take into account its sociopolitical context and critical reception. Herbert 1988 approaches Impressionism from a Marxist perspective and brings solid social history to bear in the interpretation of Impressionist paintings. Broude 1991 challenges the gender dichotomies implicit in traditional, patriarchal assessments of Impressionism and argues against the notion of Impressionist paintings as rapidly executed, objective recordings. Tinterow and Loyrette 1994 turns to the 1860s, the decade before the independent exhibitions began, and traces the formation of the group and its development of the painterly approach that would become known as “Impressionism.” Thomson 2000 applies several of the new directions and takes the group’s history as discussed in Rewald 1973 into the last years of the 19th century.
  8.  
  9. Berson, Ruth, ed. The New Painting: Impressionism, 1874–1886; Documentation. 2 vols. San Francisco: Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 1996.
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  11. Volume 1 is an indispensable collection of reviews for the eight group exhibitions (1874–1886), many never previously reprinted, and for research into contemporary critical responses to Impressionist painting. The reviews are in French, with the exception of the occasional Anglophone article. Volume 2 includes documentation for works known to have been exhibited.
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  13. Broude, Norma. Impressionism: A Feminist Reading; The Gendering of Art, Science, and Nature in the Nineteenth Century. New York: Rizzoli, 1991.
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  15. Thoughtful, provocative inquiry that draws on philosophy, science, and art criticism to challenge the notion of Impressionism as a kind of quasi-scientific, optical realism. Traces the shift in interpretation from the early coding of Impressionist landscapes as feminine to the anxious emphasis in the 20th century on their masculinity and connections with science.
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  17. Callen, Anthea. The Art of Impressionism: Painting Technique and the Making of Modernity. New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 2000.
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  19. Deeply thoughtful and observant study that analyzes technical aspects of Impressionist painting. Argues that Impressionism’s modernity derived not just from subject matter, but also from the artists’ material practices. Richly illustrated, thorough glossary of terms.
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  21. Herbert, Robert. Impressionism: Art, Leisure, and Parisian Society. New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 1988.
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  23. Scholarly, accessible text that seamlessly blends solidly researched social history with astute analyses of individual paintings. Chapters are organized by theme. With elegantly crafted prose, Herbert links Impressionist subjects to the changing physical and social conditions in Paris and its suburbs. The book’s large format allows for copious illustrations.
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  25. Melot, Michel. The Impressionist Print. Translated by Caroline Beamish. New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 1996.
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  27. Astute, broad-ranging exploration of prints by the Impressionists and many of their contemporaries. Analyzes individual artists and specific prints, and sets printmaking into broader contexts—historical, technical, and aesthetic. Large format, well illustrated.
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  29. Moffett, Charles S. The New Painting: Impressionism, 1874–1886. San Francisco: Fine Arts Museums, 1986.
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  31. Catalogue of a groundbreaking exhibition, assisted by Ruth Berson, Barbara Lee Williams, and Fronia E. Wissman, that assembled paintings from each of the Impressionists’ eight independent shows. Includes well-documented, in-depth essays on each exhibition, on the naming of Impressionism (Eisenman), and on the essential subjectivity of the Impressionist approach (Shiff). Includes key texts in English by Mallarmé and Duranty.
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  33. Rewald, John. The History of Impressionism. 4th rev. ed. New York: Museum of Modern Art, 1973.
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  35. An important treatment of Impressionism organized around the group’s eight exhibitions (1874–1886). Once the major text, its significance has paled, as social history, gender studies, and critical theory have expanded the discipline. Includes an annotated bibliography and detailed chronology of the group and its exhibitions.
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  37. Shiff, Richard. Cézanne and the End of Impressionism: A Study of the Theory and Critical Evaluation of Modern Art. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984.
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  39. Primarily concerned with Cézanne but highly relevant for Impressionism in general. Probes the terminology used by 19th-century writers to describe Cézanne’s paintings. Disputes the stereotype of Impressionism as an objective style, devoid of affective components, and finds continuity between Cézanne’s early paintings and those after the 1870s.
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  41. Thomson, Belinda. Impressionism: Origins, Practice, Reception. London: Thames & Hudson, 2000.
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  43. Begins with a concise and useful summary of the methodological changes that took place in Impressionist studies in the late 20th century. Reflects these changes and provides wide-ranging rereadings of Impressionism and its painters. Generally chronological, weaves in considerations of political and cultural context, biography, reception, and the art market.
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  45. Tinterow, Gary, and Henri Loyrette. Origins of Impressionism. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1994.
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  47. Although the term “Impressionism” came into use in 1874, the artists of the works designated as such had shared a professional, and personal, history well before that date. This pioneering exhibition catalogue traces the formation of the group and their gradual development of Impressionism from 1859 through 1870.
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  49. 19th-century Critical Essays and Reviews
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  51. Although Baudelaire 1995 (originally published in 1863) does not address Impressionism—the essay was written too early for that—it is a crucial text for its insistence on painterly subjects taken from modern life and its analysis of the components of modern beauty. In the 1870s, paintings by the Impressionists and Édouard Manet drew strong support from some of the period’s most articulate writers. Mallarmé 1998 (originally published in 1876) is a trenchant and puckish defense of Manet, written in response to the Salon’s rejection of his paintings in 1874. Mallarmé 1986 and Duret 1878 seek to normalize Impressionism by explaining its aesthetics and linking it to works by highly regarded artists from the past. Zola 1876 attacks the Salon’s tyrannical jury, and his strategy of defense is to argue for Impressionism as the painting of the future. Duranty 1986 (originally published in 1876) addresses the hostility that the “new painting”—i.e., Impressionism—generated and sets its novelty and originality against the lackluster productions of popular contemporary painters. With over 400, large-format, densely packed pages of contemporary reviews, Berson 1996 gives unprecedented access to journalists’ (mostly French) responses to Impressionism. In addition, the Bibliothèque Nationale de France has created Gallica, an indispensable website for accessing 19th-century French books and periodicals (as well as other information).
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  53. Baudelaire, Charles. “The Painter of Modern Life.” In The Painter of Modern Life and Other Essays. 2d ed. Edited and translated by Jonathan Mayne, 1–41. London: Phaidon, 1995.
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  55. This analysis of the aesthetics of modernity remains a key text, most notably for its articulation of the transient versus the stable components to the beauty of a given time. Sometimes misinterpreted to mean that only the later 19th-century’s concept of beauty had its transient, fleeting elements. Originally published in 1863.
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  57. Berson, Ruth, ed. The New Painting: Impressionism, 1874–1886; Documentation. 2 vols. San Francisco: Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, 1996.
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  59. An extensive compilation of reviews (Volume 1) and documentation (Volume 2) for the eight independent Impressionist group exhibitions. Most reviews in French.
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  61. Duranty, Edmond. “The New Painting: Concerning the Group of Artists Exhibiting at the Durand-Ruel Galleries.” In The New Painting: Impressionism, 1874–1886. Edited by Charles S. Moffett, 37–49. San Francisco: Fine Arts Museums, 1986.
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  63. Refutes criticisms of Impressionism, which Duranty calls the “new painting.” Charges the École des Beaux-Arts with stifling its students’ originality and criticizes popular contemporary artists as repetitive and superficial. Traces the origins of the new painting and, in reasoned terms, elucidates its subjects, techniques, and pictorial strategies. Originally published in 1876.
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  65. Duret, Théodore. Les peintres impressionnistes. Gallica. Paris: Heymann et J. Perois, 1878.
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  67. Lively defense of Impressionism, with sections on Monet, Sisley, Pissarro, Renoir, and Morisot. Coincided with these artists’ fourth group exhibition and attempted to defuse hostility by relating Impressionism to the history of painting in France. In French.
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  69. Gallica. Bibliothèque Nationale de France.
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  71. An invaluable website for accessing 19th-century books and periodicals, which are now in the public domain. The site can also be navigated in English, access is free and unrestricted, and items can be downloaded without charge.
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  73. Mallarmé, Stéphane. “The Impressionists and Édouard Manet.” In The New Painting: Impressionism, 1874–1886. Edited by Charles S. Moffett, 27–36. San Francisco: Fine Arts Museums, 1986.
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  75. This essay was originally published by Mallarmé in 1876; no French original is known to exist. Written in defense of these artists, the essay is one of the most perceptive and informed analyses of modernist aesthetics. Situates Manet and the Impressionists within the history of French 19th-century painting and links their works to progressive politics.
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  77. Mallarmé, Stéphane. “The Painting Jury for 1874 and Monsieur Manet.” In A Painter’s Poet: Stéphane Mallarmé and His Impressionist Circle. Translated by Jeanine Parisier Plottel and Jane M. Roos, 32–35. New York: Hunter College of the City University of New York, 1998.
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  79. Originally published in 1874. Often ignored, this essay shows Mallarmé at his elegant, subtle, humorist best. Attacks the Salon jury for its rejection of Manet, dissects its politics and parochialism—in both senses of both terms—and gives a canny portrayal of the problems infecting the Salon.
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  81. Zola, Émile. “Deux Expositions d’art au mois de Mai.” Lettres de Paris, June 1876.
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  83. Reviewed the 1876 Salon and set the virtues of the second Impressionist exhibition against the Salon’s shortcomings. Characterized Impressionism as the painting of the future, noted that its effects had already begun to appear in Salon painting, and predicted that within twenty years these excluded artists would have transformed French painting.
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  85. Anthologies
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  87. For researchers without a command of French, Harrison, et al. 1998 and Nochlin 1966 reproduce and translate into English numerous 19th-century documents relating to Impressionism. In many cases, however, documents are given in excerpted form. Lewis 2007 focuses on the 20th and 21st centuries, with essays on Impressionism, its exhibitions, reception, and sociopolitical context. Farwell 1985 and Dolan 2012 comprise essays devoted to Manet, and Burlington Magazine focuses on Degas in its Special Issue: Degas. Women Impressionists occupy the collections in Edelstein 1990 and Pfeiffer and Hollein 2008.
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  89. Dolan, Therese, ed. Perspectives on Manet. London: Ashgate, 2012.
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  91. Thematic essays that address Manet’s art from a variety of methodological perspectives. Both broad treatments and analyses of specific works. Includes contributions by Nancy Locke, Susan Sidlauskas, Suzanne Singletary, Jane Roos, Robert Lethbridge, James Rubin, Therese Dolan, Marilyn Brown, and Steven Levine.
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  93. Edelstein, T. J., ed. Perspectives on Morisot. New York: Hudson Hills, 1990.
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  95. Adapted from a 1988 symposium. Essays by Kathleen Adler, Beatrice Farwell, Tamar Garb, Anne Higonnet, Suzanne Lindsay, Linda Nochlin, and Anne Schirrmeister that highlight issues of femininity and gender as they affected Morisot’s life and art.
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  97. Farwell, Beatrice, ed. Special Issue: Manet. Art Journal 45.1 (Spring 1985).
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  99. This special issue on Manet includes essays on his Absinthe Drinker, Olympia, Civil War, Barricade, Polichinelle, Rue Mosnier, In the Conservatory, and Chez le Père Lathuille Available online by purchase or subscription.
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  101. Harrison, Charles, Paul Wood, and Jason Gaiger. Art in Theory, 1815–1900: An Anthology of Changing Ideas. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998.
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  103. Numerous artists’ letters and statements, contemporary art reviews, and philosophical analyses, many in excerpted form. Includes commentary on the writers and selections reproduced. Later sections relevant for Impressionism. No illustrations.
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  105. Lewis, Mary Tomkins, ed. Critical Readings in Impressionism and Post-Impressionism: An Anthology. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007.
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  107. Includes a perceptive discussion of the reception of Impressionism in the 20th century by Lewis and reprints relevant essays by Robert Herbert, Nicholas Green, Martha Ward, T. J. Clark, Stephen Eisenman, Carol Armstrong, Tamar Garb, and Paul Tucker.
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  109. Nochlin, Linda, ed. Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, 1874–1904: Sources and Documents. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1966.
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  111. Thoughtful selection of letters and statements by Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Degas, and Cézanne, with introductory commentary. Includes excerpts from Duranty (see Duranty 1986, cited under 19th-Century Critical Essays and Reviews) and Duret (see Duret 1878, cited under 19th-Century Critical Essays and Reviews). No illustrations.
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  113. Pfeiffer, Ingrid, and Max Hollein, eds. Women Impressionists. Translated by Bronwen Saunders and John Tittensor. Frankfurt: Schirn Kunsthalle, 2008.
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  115. Extensive, well-illustrated exhibition catalogue featuring essays on Morisot and Cassatt, as well as two lesser-known women artists associated with the Impressionists—Marie Bracquemond and Eva Gonzalèz.
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  117. Special Issue: Degas. Burlington Magazine 130.1020 (March 1988).
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  119. Essays by Richard Kendall (“Degas and the Contingency of Vision”), Mari Kálmán Meller (“Exercises in and around Degas’s Classrooms”), and Marilyn R. Brown (“Degas and ‘A Cotton Office in New Orleans’”), with shorter pieces by R. B. Kitaj, Richard Thomson, Anna Greutzner Robins, and Gary Tinterow. Available online for purchase.
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  121. Topical Studies
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  123. A recent trend in the literature on Impressionism has been the increasing number of publications that link the paintings with the economic, social, and/or political contexts of the time.
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  125. Collectors and the Marketplace
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  127. White and White 1993 (originally published in 1965) was one of the first publications to situate Impressionism in a commercial context, and this sociological analysis links Impressionist paintings with the restructuring of the French art market in the last decades of the 19th century. Green 2007 (originally published in 1987) also examines shifts in the French art market, and his study considers the repercussions seen in the way in which artists and their works were promoted. Jensen 1994 provides a thorough treatment of the strategies developed for commercializing modernist painting and includes extensive coverage of Impressionism. Distel 1990 considers collectors and dealers of Impressionist painting, and Dumas 1997 focuses on the important art collection assembled by Degas. Assouline 2004 provides a general-audience biography of Paul Durand-Ruel, an art dealer of great significance for the Impressionists. Godfroy 1995 reproduces letters exchanged between Durand-Ruel and Renoir, which are complemented by the correspondence between Durand-Ruel and Pissarro in Snollaerts 2005.
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  129. Assouline, Pierre. Discovering Impressionism: The Life and Times of Paul Durand-Ruel. Translated by Willard Wood and Anthony Roberts. New York: Vendome, 2004.
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  131. Biography of the art dealer who first represented the Impressionists in the early 1870s, at a time when there was little market for their works. Covers the expansion of Durand-Ruel’s gallery, the economic crisis of the early 1880s, and the art dealer’s ultimate success in launching Impressionism on an international scale.
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  133. Distel, Anne. Impressionism: The First Collectors. Translated by Barbara Perroud-Benson. New York: Abrams, 1990.
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  135. Follows the art market for Impressionist paintings from the 1870s into the early 1900s. Includes lengthy discussions of Parisian art dealers from Paul Durand-Ruel to Ambroise Vollard and private collectors. Concludes with the expansion of the Impressionist market into Great Britain and the United States.
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  137. Dumas, Ann. The Private Collection of Edgar Degas. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1997.
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  139. Extensive exhibition catalogue, with thirteen essays by a wide range of contributors, such as Colta Ives, Susan Alyson Stein, and Gary Tinterow. Includes discussions of the formation and dispersal of Degas’s significant art collection; his high regard for Ingres, Delacroix, and Daumier; his prints and Japonisme; and his relations—as both artist and collector—with his Impressionist colleagues.
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  141. Godfroy, Caroline Durand-Ruel, ed. Correspondance de Renoir et Durand-Ruel. 2 vols. Lausanne, Switzerland: Bibliothèque des Arts, 1995.
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  143. Letters between Renoir and Paul Durand-Ruel, the art dealer who was one of the most significant supporters and promoters of the Impressionists. Spans the period from 1881 to 1919 (the year of Renoir’s death).
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  145. Green, Nicolas. “Dealing in Temperaments: Economic Transformation of the Artistic Field in France during the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century.” In Critical Readings in Impressionism and Post-Impressionism: An Anthology. Edited by Mary Tomkins Lewis, 31–47. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007.
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  147. Looks at changes in the art market’s structure and argues that the shift in speculation from Old Master paintings to modern ones was accompanied by a discursive reorientation that promoted individualism and the artist’s uniqueness. Originally published in 1987.
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  149. Jensen, Robert. Marketing Modernism in Fin-de-Siècle Europe. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994.
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  151. Looks beyond France, but much of the study is devoted to an analysis of the marketing strategies and commercial alliances that helped to legitimize and promote Impressionist paintings. Most informative for accounts of art dealers and critics, the emerging Impressionist discourse, and the internationalization of the art market.
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  153. Patry, Sylvie, ed. Inventing Impressionism: Paul Durand-Ruel and the Modern Art Market. London: National Gallery, 2015.
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  155. Exhibition catalogue devoted to the Parisian art dealer who was a crucial early supporter of Impressionist painting. Ten essays on Durand-Ruel, written by noted scholars. Detailed, illustrated chronology and catalogue of exhibited works.
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  157. Snollaerts, Claire Durand-Ruel. “A Painter and His Dealer: Camille Pissarro (1830–1903) and Paul Durand-Ruel (1831–1922).” In Pissarro: Critical Catalogue of Paintings. Vol. 1. Edited by Joachim Pissarro and Claire Durand-Ruel Snollaerts, 12–59. Translated by Mark Hutchinson and Michael Taylor. Milan: Skira, 2005.
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  159. Chronological account of the long relationship between the two men, based on Pissarro’s correspondence and material from the Durand-Ruel archives. Much information about their dealings and the economic crises both experienced.
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  161. Weitzenhoffer, Frances. The Havemeyers: Impressionism Comes to America. New York: Abrams, 1986.
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  163. Broad-ranging, engaging biography of Louisine Elder Havemeyer, which treats at length her relationship with Cassatt and the latter’s impact on bringing Impressionist paintings to the United States. Significant information concerning Cassatt in Paris post-1874, the international art market, and the American reception of Impressionism.
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  165. White, Harrison C., and Cynthia White. Canvases and Careers: Institutional Change in the French Painting World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993.
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  167. Taking a sociological approach, the book relates the emergence of Impressionist painting to the shift from an art world dominated by the French Academy, the École des Beaux-Arts, and the Salon to the modern system structured by dealers, critics, and small exhibitions. Originally published in 1965.
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  169. Fashion
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  171. Cutting-edge fashion was an essential, perhaps the essential, time marker for 19th-century French artists engaged in depicting scenes of contemporary urban life. Baudelaire 1995—a key starting point—insists on fashion as a visual component that marks a scene as modern and sets it apart from all other modernities. Perrot 1994 considers the history of clothing and the fashion industry in 19th-century France and decodes the various layers of significance that garments conveyed. Simon 1995 traces the history of French fashion in the latter 19th century and examines the contemporary clothing ubiquitous in Impressionist paintings. Iskin 2007 links issues of Parisian consumerism and fashion to Impressionist representations of women and argues against the idea of the exclusion of women from the city’s public spaces. Groom 2012 is a comprehensive, deeply researched, and superbly illustrated exhibition catalogue that draws on the fashion-related specialties of a multidisciplinary team of contributors. Most chapters conclude with a focus section that closely examines the fashions seen in a single relevant painting.
  172.  
  173. Baudelaire, Charles. “The Painter of Modern Life.” In The Painter of Modern Life and Other Essays. 2d ed. Edited and translated by Jonathan Mayne, 1–41. London: Phaidon, 1995.
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  175. Includes discussion of the significance of modern dress as conveying the special character—the fugitive and ephemeral beauty—of a particular period.
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  177. Groom, Gloria, ed. Impressionism, Fashion, and Modernity. Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2012.
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  179. Beautifully designed and illustrated, this extensive exhibition catalogue includes twenty-two essays by specialists in the visual arts, literature, fashion, and the contemporary press. Packed with information about the history of 19th-century French fashion and the fashion industry as well as the centrality of fashion for the Impressionists and their colleagues.
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  181. Iskin, Ruth. Modern Women and Parisian Consumer Culture in Impressionist Painting. Cambridge, UK, and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
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  183. Examines the influence of consumer culture on depictions of women by Manet and the Impressionists. Argues for female agency and spectatorship and for women as active participants in public urban spaces.
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  185. Perrot, Philippe. Fashioning the Bourgeoisie: A History of Clothing in the Nineteenth Century. Translated by Richard Bienvenu. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994.
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  187. An insightful, engaging study of the clothing of the upper bourgeoisie, with historical, sociological, and semiotic components. Considers the emergence of department stores and the ready-to-wear clothing industry, analyzes the prescribed outer garments and underclothing, and decodes the social and cultural significance of items of dress. Originally published in 1981.
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  189. Simon, Marie. Fashion in Art: The Second Empire and Impressionism. Translated by Edmund Jephcott. London: Zwemmer, 1995.
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  191. Well-illustrated general history of fashion as related to Impressionist painting; actually extends beyond the Second Empire and traces the influence of fashion on painting to the end of the 19th century.
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  193. Gender
  194.  
  195. The emergence of the feminist movement in the latter 20th century resulted in art history studies that analyze gender stereotypes and the ways in which they affected the careers of women artists and influenced the reading of Impressionist works. Pollock 2003 is a groundbreaking essay that analyzes the constraints of 19th-century femininity in relation to paintings by Morisot and Cassatt. Broude 1991 considers the gender associations that were assigned to Impressionist paintings and the interpretive shift that occurred in the 20th century. Feminist theory informs the essays in Edelstein 1990 concerning Morisot’s art and the interpretation of Cassatt in Pollock 1998. In addition to highlighting Morisot and Cassatt, Pfeiffer and Hollein 2008 takes into consideration the work of Marie Bracquemond and Eva Gonzalèz, both of whom had links with the Impressionist group. The essays in Kendall and Pollock 1992 address issues of gender and misogyny in relation to Degas’s work, and the essays in D’Souza and McDonough 2006 problematize the figure of the flâneur and the gender associations traditionally assigned to the spaces of Paris.
  196.  
  197. Broude, Norma. Impressionism: A Feminist Reading: The Gendering of Art, Science, and Nature in the Nineteenth Century. New York: Rizzoli, 1991.
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  199. Foregrounds the stereotypic notions of gender embedded in art-history literature and considers their effect on interpretations of Impressionism. Analyzes how and why Impressionist paintings, which were coded “feminine” in the 19th century, became masculinized in the 20th century and associated with science and objectivity.
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  201. Clayson, Hollis. Painted Love: Prostitution in French Art of the Impressionist Era. New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 1991.
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  203. Focuses primarily on Manet and Degas, and draws on social history to relate their images of prostitutes and/or brothels to a heightened male sexual anxiety in the 1870s and 1880s.
  204. Find this resource:
  205. D’Souza, Aruna, and Tom McDonough, eds. The Invisible Flâneuse? Gender, Public Space, and Visual Culture in Nineteenth-Century Paris. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2006.
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  207. Thirteen essays that call into question previous theories concerning a rigid polarity between Parisian public spaces gendered as male and the city’s private spaces gendered as female. Debates Pollock 2003 and Clark 1999 (cited under Paris) and draws on popular culture—images and texts—to argue for a more fluid interpretation of the city’s gender topography.
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  209. Edelstein, T. J., ed. Perspectives on Morisot. New York: Hudson Hills, 1990.
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  211. Includes Kathleen Adler’s “The Spaces of Everyday Life: Berthe Morisot and Passy,” Tamar Garb’s “Berthe Morisot and the Feminizing of Impressionism,” and Linda Nochlin’s “Morisot’s Wet Nurse: The Construction of Work and Leisure in Impressionist Painting.”
  212. Find this resource:
  213. Kendall, Richard, and Griselda Pollock, eds. Dealing with Degas: Representations of Women and the Politics of Vision. New York: Universe, 1992.
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  215. Throughout his career, Degas returned frequently to representations of women, depicting them in his paintings, sculptures, pastels, drawings, and prints. This collection of ten essays circles around issues of gender and misogyny as related to Degas’s fascination with the female body and especially to his images of nude bathers.
  216. Find this resource:
  217. Pfeiffer, Ingrid, and Max Hollein, eds. Women Impressionists. Translated by Bronwen Saunders and John Tittensor. Frankfurt: Schirn Kunsthalle, 2008.
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  219. Catalogue to a significant exhibition of works by Berthe Morisot, Mary Cassatt, Marie Bracquemond (printmaker and participant in Impressionist exhibitions), and Eva Gonzalèz (painter connected to the Impressionist circle). Ten essays by Linda Nochlin, Sylvie Patry, Hugues Wilhelm, Griselda Pollock, Pamela Ivinski, Marie-Caroline Sainsaulieu, Jean-Paul Bouillon, and Anna Havemann. Biographies and bibliography.
  220. Find this resource:
  221. Pollock, Griselda. Mary Cassatt: Painter of Modern Women. London: Thames & Hudson, 1998.
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  223. Important revisionist study informed by social history and feminist theory. Emphasizes Cassatt’s resistance to gender constraints, rigorous pursuit of artistic training, decision to join the Impressionists, and emergence as a modernist painter. Interprets her depictions of women and children as infused with intellectual and psychological complexity.
  224. Find this resource:
  225. Pollock, Griselda. “Modernity and the Spaces of Femininity.” In Vision and Difference: Feminism, Femininity, and the Histories of Art. By Griselda Pollock, 50–90. London and New York: Routledge, 2003.
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  227. Highly influential essay that theorizes Impressionist pictorial space in terms of the depicted location and organizing structure and links both with a male-dominated gender polarity. Analyzes the intimate, enclosing, domestic spaces seen in works by Morisot and Cassatt as inscribed with the sexually repressive, socially constructed concept of femininity. Originally published in 1966.
  228. Find this resource:
  229. Paris
  230.  
  231. It is difficult to imagine a study of Impressionism that omits mention of the renovation of Paris in the 1850s and 1860s. Overcrowded and unhealthy by the mid-19th century, the city was rebuilt under the direction of Napoleon III and Georges-Eugène Haussmann. Turned into the most thoroughly modernized metropolis in Europe, Paris became a favored site for artists engaged in depicting contemporary life. Reff 1982 relates paintings by Manet and the Impressionists to the renovation’s impact, and Herbert 1988, a much lengthier treatment, analyzes some 300 works and gives extensive treatment to the city’s social and cultural history. Clark 1999 addresses the repercussions of the changes on issues of economics and class, and D’Souza and McDonough 2006 includes discussion of the gender implications to the newly constructed spaces. The many essays in Groom 2012 connect the new Paris with the fashion and the burgeoning fashion industry, Riopelle 2007 discusses the renovations as related to Renoir’s depictions of Paris, and Clayson 2002 treats many aspects of Parisian life under the 1870–1871 siege.
  232.  
  233. Clark, T. J. “The Environs of Paris.” In The Painting of Modern Life: Paris in the Art of Manet and His Followers. Rev. ed. By T. J. Clark, 147–204. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999.
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  235. Explores the changing character of the environs of Paris, with the incursion of the leisure industry and the emergence of the lower middle class. Links the impact of the changes with paintings by Manet and the Impressionists. Originally published in 1984.
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  237. Clayson, Hollis. Paris in Despair: Art and Everyday Life under Siege (1870–71). Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002.
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  239. Focuses on Paris during the 1870–1871 siege by the Prussians and weaves in detailed and extensively documented information about the particularities of day-to-day life in the capital.
  240. Find this resource:
  241. D’Souza, Aruna, and Tom McDonough, eds. The Invisible Flâneuse? Gender, Public Space, and Visual Culture in Nineteenth-Century Paris. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2006.
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  243. In the process of questioning the standard interpretation of the flâneur and the situation of women vis-à-vis Parisian public spaces, a number of these essays address “Haussmannization” and its sociocultural implications.
  244. Find this resource:
  245. Groom, Gloria, ed. Impressionism, Fashion, and Modernity. Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2012.
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  247. Exhibition catalogue that treats, among others, Haussmann’s renovations of Paris, its development as the center of the French fashion trade, and the first appearance of the city’s department stores.
  248. Find this resource:
  249. Herbert, Robert. Impressionism: Art, Leisure, and Parisian Society. New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 1988.
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  251. Relates Impressionist paintings to the changing sociocultural context of Paris and its suburbs in the second half of the 19th century. Distills and synthesizes a great deal of information about the history of this area and the impact of these changes on contemporary life and art.
  252. Find this resource:
  253. Reff, Theodore. Manet and Modern Paris. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1982.
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  255. Exhibition catalogue that relates Manet’s works, and those by several Impressionists, to the changed conditions of public life in Haussmannized Paris and its environs. Thematic introductory essays and lengthy analyses of the exhibition’s paintings and works on paper.
  256. Find this resource:
  257. Riopelle, Christopher. “Renoir in the City.” In Renoir: Landscapes, 1865–1883. Edited by Colin B. Bailey, Christopher Riopelle, John House, Simon Kelly, and John Zarobell, 32–49. London: National Gallery, 2007.
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  259. An informative essay that interprets Renoir’s cityscapes of the 1860s and 1870s in relation to the transformations wrought by the Haussmannization of Paris.
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  261. Politics
  262.  
  263. Despite the Impressionists’ personal politics, which ranged from staunchly conservative to radically progressive, their art was seen to carry a liberal political charge. Nord 2000 gives a concise treatment of the connections between Impressionism and politics from a historian’s perspective. Roos 1996 links Impressionism and politics via the changing Salon regulations in the late 1860s and early 1870s and theorizes that the political conservatism of the early Third Republic was a key factor in the organization of the Impressionists’ first independent exhibition (1874). Eisenman 1986 examines the political implications of the terms “Intransigent” and “Impressionist,” first applied to the group in 1874. Originally published in 1984, Clark 1999 brings a rigorous Marxist perspective to the interpretation of paintings by Manet and the Impressionists. Herbert 1988 links Impressionist painting with the sociopolitical contexts of the time, House 2004 argues that the conservatism of President MacMahon’s government in the 1870s kept the Impressionist group together in this period, and Roos 1988 probes the political connotations of paintings by Manet and Monet in 1878.
  264.  
  265. Clark, T. J. The Painting of Modern Life: Paris in the Art of Manet and His Followers. Rev. ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999.
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  267. Groundbreaking Marxist analysis originally published in 1984. Investigates the impact of later-19th-century economic and social forces on the topography and class structure of Paris and its suburbs. Links the tensions of change to representations by Manet and, to a lesser degree, Monet and Degas.
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  269. Eisenman, Stephen F. “The Intransigent Artist or How the Impressionists Got Their Name.” In The New Painting: Impressionism, 1874–1886. Edited by Charles S. Moffett, 51–59. San Francisco: Fine Arts Museums, 1986.
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  271. Significant essay that probes the term “Intransigent,” first launched by reviewers in 1874. Analyzes the political origin of the term as associated with violence and anarchy and compares its implications with those of the politically more moderate term “Impressionist.”
  272. Find this resource:
  273. Herbert, Robert L. Impressionism: Art, Leisure, and Parisian Society. New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 1988.
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  275. Excellent Marxist-oriented study that integrates discussions of French social and political history from the 1860s through the mid-1880s with lucid, perceptive analyses of individual works. Addresses both subject and style and is organized topically around sites favored by the Impressionist painters.
  276. Find this resource:
  277. House, John. Impressionism: Paint and Politics. New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 2004.
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  279. Seven thematic essays that manage to trace the history of Impressionism in more or less chronological fashion. Study argues provocatively that what kept the Impressionist group together in the 1870s was the political conservatism of President MacMahon’s government.
  280. Find this resource:
  281. Nord, Philip. Impressionists and Politics: Art and Democracy in the Nineteenth Century. London and New York: Routledge, 2000.
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  283. Concise, informative history of Impressionism as seen through the interpretative gaze of a historian. Links progressive republican politics to the organization of the Impressionists’ independent exhibitions (1874–1886) and to the subject matter and technical innovations of their paintings.
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  285. Roos, Jane M. “Within the ‘Zone of Silence’: Monet and Manet in 1878.” Art History 11.3 (September 1988): 374–407.
  286. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8365.1988.tb00310.xSave Citation »Export Citation »E-mail Citation »
  287. Situates Monet’s Rue Montorgueil and Rue Saint-Denis and Manet’s depictions of The Rue Mosnier with Flags in the context of the Fête de la Paix. Analyzes the events preceding the celebration and reverses the traditional view of Monet’s paintings as politically engaged and Manet’s as politically remote.
  288. Find this resource:
  289. Roos, Jane M. Early Impressionism and the French State (1866–1874). Cambridge, UK, and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996.
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  291. Studies the Impressionists’ experiences at the Salon and reactions to Salon policy. Analyzes their protests of the mid-1860s and the government’s implementation of increasingly liberal policies. Interprets the first group exhibition as a continuation of the painters’ earlier actions and a response to the Salon’s renewed conservatism in the 1870s.
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  293. Prominent Painters
  294.  
  295. The core of the Impressionist group is generally seen to comprise Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Berthe Morisot, Camille Pissarro, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir—artists who participated in the first exhibition (1874) and more-or-less continued to participate through the last (1886). Édouard Manet never joined the group exhibitions, but painted with the Impressionists from the mid-1860s forward and was considered—as he still tends to be—as the major influence on the group. To these painters can be added Paul Cézanne, who worked with the group in the 1860s and exhibited in their first exhibitions.
  296.  
  297. Paul Cézanne
  298.  
  299. Much study has been given to Cézanne’s later works, which come under the rubrics Post-Impressionism or Symbolism and lie beyond the scope of this article on Impressionism. Rewald, et al. 1996, the catalogue raisonné for Cézanne, provides a solid overview of his career, which is complemented by the essays, catalogue entries, and chronology in Cachin 1996. Cézanne’s early paintings, overlooked for most of the 20th century, are the subject of Gowing 1988. This well-illustrated exhibition catalogue presents informative essays and catalogue entries on Cézanne’s paintings of the 1860s and 1870s. Lewis 1989 analyzes his early subject paintings and explores the complexity of sources from which he drew, and Dombrowski 2012 argues that Cézanne’s early paintings are evidence of his engagement with contemporary issues and share picture-making concerns with his later works. Pissarro 2005 sets the crucial transition in Cézanne’s paintings—between the mid-1860s and mid-1880s—into the context of his friendship with Camille Pissarro. Based on close readings of both painters’ works, it argues for their mutual influence. Shiff 1984 looks to Cézanne’s contemporaries to parse the vocabulary they used in discussing his works and challenges the ideas of Impressionism as an emotionally neutral approach and one that differed substantively from Symbolism of the 1880s and 1890s. Schapiro 1978 (originally published in 1968) takes a psychoanalytical approach and interprets Cézanne’s still lifes as signs of his sexual repression and introversion. In analyzing the artist’s portraits of his wife, Hortense Fiquet Cézanne, Sidlauskas 2009 refutes Schapiro 1978 with a perceptive scrutiny of the subtle and shifting emotional content of the portraits.
  300.  
  301. Cachin, Françoise. Cézanne. Translated by John Goodman. Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1996.
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  303. Catalogue to a large retrospective of Cézanne’s work. Entries for each of the works exhibited, plus essays on the critical response to his work by Isabelle Cahn, Walter Feilchenfeldt, Henri Loyrette, and Joseph J. Rishel; a detailed chronology of his life and career; and short descriptions of his major collectors.
  304. Find this resource:
  305. Dombrowski, André. Cézanne, Murder, and Modern Life. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012.
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  307. Thoughtfully infuses social art history with psychoanalytic theory. Views Cézanne’s paintings from 1865 to 1872 not as groping, dismissible early efforts, but as deliberate responses to Manet’s works and contemporary social conditions and as part of a conscious aesthetics that Cézanne maintained throughout his career.
  308. Find this resource:
  309. Gowing, Lawrence. Cézanne: The Early Years, 1859–1872. Edited by Mary Anne Stevens. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1988.
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  311. Includes contributions by Götz Adriani, Mary Louise Krumrine, Mary Tomkins Lewis, Sylvie Patin, and John Rewald. Catalogue for the first major exhibition devoted to the early works. Includes thematic essays that consider the significance and complexity of the paintings—in both subject matter and technique—as well as discussions of individual works, accompanied by provenance, exhibition history, and bibliography.
  312. Find this resource:
  313. Lewis, Mary Tompkins. Cézanne’s Early Imagery. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989.
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  315. Sets aside the formal aspects of Cézanne’s work and undertakes a detailed examination of his subjects. Analyzes his work in terms of his engagement with the Old Masters; with contemporary themes in the visual arts, literature, and music; and, importantly, with the Provençal culture of his natal region.
  316. Find this resource:
  317. Pissarro, Joachim. Pioneering Modern Painting: Cézanne & Pissarro (1865–1885). New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2005.
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  319. Beautifully illustrated exhibition catalogue that disputes the traditional view of Cézanne as Camille Pissarro’s pupil and compellingly analyzes the artistic reciprocity seen in their paintings over the approximately twenty-year period of their relationship. Includes a chronology and bibliography.
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  321. Rewald, John, Walter Feilchenfeldt, and Jayne Warman. The Paintings of Paul Cézanne: A Catalogue Raisonné. 2 vols. New York: Abrams, 1996.
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  323. Informed by Rewald’s deep knowledge and lifelong study of Cézanne and completed by Feilchenfeldt and Warman after Rewald’s death (1994). Volume 1 includes textual material—introductory essays by the contributors and catalogue entries; Volume 2 contains plates. Tends to neglect studies by scholars of the 1980s and early 1990s.
  324. Find this resource:
  325. Schapiro, Meyer. “The Apples of Cézanne: An Essay on the Meaning of Still-Life.” In Modern Art, 19th and 20th Centuries: Selected Papers. By Meyer Schapiro, 1–38. New York: George Braziller, 1978.
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  327. Highly influential 1968 essay that challenged formalist readings of Cézanne’s work and, by implication, those of the Impressionists. Moves between his art and his writings, and employs psychoanalytic theory to link his fascination with apples and still-life motifs to introversion and sexual anxiety.
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  329. Shiff, Richard. Cézanne and the End of Impressionism: A Study of the Theory and Critical Evaluation of Modern Art. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984.
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  331. Groundbreaking, original analysis that brought rigorous intellectual depth to the study of Cézanne’s painting and Impressionism in general. Questions the widely held notion of Impressionist objectivity, usually positioned in opposition to the greater emotionality of Symbolist works, and argues for an aesthetic continuity that runs through Cézanne’s œuvre.
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  333. Sidlauskas, Susan. Cézanne’s Other: The Portraits of Hortense. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009.
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  335. Elegant analysis of Cézanne’s depictions of his wife, Hortense Fiquet Cézanne. Challenges interpretations that consider these portrayals as inexpressive, and characterizes Cézanne’s work in general as emotionally detached. Looks to psychoanalytical literature and writings on sexuality, and theorizes the paintings as exploring the constantly shifting relations between self and other.
  336. Find this resource:
  337. Edgar Degas
  338.  
  339. Degas long has been seen as standing apart from his Impressionist colleagues, and Armstrong 1991 utilizes contemporary writings to probe the peculiarities of the man and his art and the ways in which both resist absorption into the traditional Impressionist and modernist narratives. Boggs 1988 gives extensive treatment to all phases of Degas’s career, with a hefty exhibition catalogue that discusses his paintings as well as his sculpture, pastels, drawings, and prints. Lindsay, et al. 2010 focuses on his sculpture, with excellent illustrations and state-of-the-art technical analyses. Reff 1985 gives a comprehensive presentation of the notebooks, and Lloyd 2014 considers the role and radicalism of Degas’s drawings and pastels. Reff 1976 analyzes various aspects of Degas as innovator, the essays in Kendall and Pollock 1992 address his depictions of women, and DeVonyar and Kendall 2002 explores at length his dance-related works.
  340.  
  341. Armstrong, Carol. Odd Man Out: Readings of the Work and Reputation of Edgar Degas. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1991.
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  343. A rigorous study interpreting readings of Degas’s work primarily through the prism of literary theory and psychoanalysis. Views paintings against texts—particularly, writings by Edmond Duranty, J.-K. Huysmans, and Paul Valéry. Analyzes shifts in reception and the odd resistance of Degas and his works to prevailing modernist narratives.
  344. Find this resource:
  345. Boggs, Jean Sutherland. Degas. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1988.
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  347. Over 600 pages long, this densely packed exhibition catalogue covers Degas’s entire career and thus is an essential resource. Organized chronologically with thematic essays and lengthy entries on each work by Douglas W. Druick, Henri Loynette, Michael Pantazzi, and Gary Tinterow. Tightly documented, extensive bibliography.
  348. Find this resource:
  349. DeVonyar, Jill, and Richard Kendall. Degas and the Dance. New York: Abrams, 2002.
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  351. Exhibition catalogue that gives extensive, scholarly treatment to Degas’s lifelong fascination with dancers and their craft. Organized thematically, sets oils, pastels, drawings, prints, and sculpture into the contexts of contemporary Parisian ballet and Degas’s shifting notational practice. Includes a checklist of works exhibited.
  352. Find this resource:
  353. Kendall, Richard, and Griselda Pollock, eds. Dealing with Degas: Representations of Women and the Politics of Vision. New York: Universe, 1992.
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  355. Over 75 percent of Degas’s œuvre consists of depictions of women, and these ten provocative essays analyze, with varying conclusions, the gender implications of his fascination with representing the female body, particularly the nude.
  356. Find this resource:
  357. Lindsay, Suzanne, Daphne Barbour, and Shelley Sturman. Edgar Degas Sculpture. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 2010.
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  359. Beautifully produced, informative catalogue of the museum’s large collection of Degas’s sculptures. Includes essays on the place of sculpture in his œuvre and on his methods, techniques, and materials. Lengthy catalogue entries blend art history with technical analyses based on state-of-the-art procedures and equipment. Extensive bibliography.
  360. Find this resource:
  361. Lloyd, Christopher. Edgar Degas: Drawings and Pastels. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2014.
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  363. Published simultaneously in London by Thames & Hudson. Crisply written, engaging study that probes the importance of drawing and pastel in Degas’s œuvre and highlights his increasingly radical approach. Organized chronologically and beautifully produced, with high-quality illustrations. Lacks footnotes.
  364. Find this resource:
  365. Reff, Theodore. Degas: The Artist’s Mind. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1976.
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  367. Takes its cue from an observation by Duranty and explores the ingenuity of Degas’s approach to subject matter, materials, and techniques—from the compositional complexity of his “Pictures within Pictures,” to his radical experiments with sculpture, drawing, printmaking, and pastel.
  368. Find this resource:
  369. Reff, Theodore. The Notebooks of Edgar Degas: A Catalogue of the Thirty-Eight Notebooks in the Bibliothèque Nationale and Other Collections. Rev. ed. 2 vols. New York: Hacker Art, 1985.
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  371. Introductory essay traces the history of the notebooks (provenance, critical history, years covered) and examines their significance, draftsmanship, and contents. Annotations are given for each notebook, and all pages are reproduced.
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  373. Édouard Manet
  374.  
  375. In recent decades, much attention has been given to the ambiguities of Manet’s situation vis-à-vis the Impressionists. Manet refused to participate in their independent exhibitions and never fully adopted their commitment to broken brushwork and plein-air lighting effects. In both form and content, his paintings manifest a steely recalcitrance, an out-of-the-box resistance to the Impressionists’ pictorial aesthetics. Yet, he worked with his Impressionist colleagues through the 1860s and 1870s; his paintings had a great influence on theirs; and he shared with them a commitment to what Duranty (in Moffett 1986, cited under General Overviews) termed “la nouvelle peinture” (the new painting). Although written several decades ago, the exhibition catalogue by Cachin and Moffett 1983 provides a solid introduction to both his paintings and works on paper, with extensive discussions of over 200 exhibited works. Brombert 1996 offers a well-informed biography that smoothly integrates discussions of Manet’s art. Clark 1999 (originally published in 1984) interprets paintings by Manet from a Marxist perspective, and Fried 1996 utilizes the concepts of absorption and theatricality as an analytical matrix. Locke 2001 brings psychoanalytical theories to bear in probing the impact of key relationships on Manet’s art, and Armstrong 2002 filters an analysis of Manet’s alterity through a feminist and critical theory lens. Tinterow and Lacambre 2003 situates Manet’s painting in relation to Spanish art, particularly that of Velázquez, and Wilson-Bareau 1998 thoroughly investigates the Gare Saint-Lazare, seen in Manet’s The Railway (1873), and brings fresh insights into his depiction.
  376.  
  377. Armstrong, Carol. Manet Manette. New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 2002.
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  379. Wide-ranging, densely argued study anchored in feminism, formalism, and critical theory. With “Manette” as a recurring signifier of alterity and disruptive opposition, takes into account Manet’s exhibition strategies, the significance of his graphic works, and the relation of his paintings to Baudelaire’s conception of cosmetics and to “Spanishicity.”
  380. Find this resource:
  381. Brombert, Beth Archer. Edouard Manet: Rebel in a Frock Coat. Boston and London: Little, Brown, 1996.
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  383. An intelligent biography written with a general audience in mind. Subtitle catches the paradoxical aspect of Manet, as a radical innovator on canvas and an urbane bourgeois in private life.
  384. Find this resource:
  385. Cachin, Françoise, and Charles Moffett. Manet, 1832–1883. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1983.
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  387. Catalogue to a major exhibition organized with the Musée d’Orsay, Paris, in collaboration with Michel Melot. Includes four brief essays followed by lengthy entries on each work. Although scholarship on Manet has expanded substantially since 1983, this catalogue remains a go-to text, useful for an overview of more than 200 works by this artist.
  388. Find this resource:
  389. Clark, T. J. The Painting of Modern Life: Paris in the Art of Manet and His Followers. Rev. ed. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999.
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  391. A groundbreaking Marxist-oriented study, threading together issues of class, money, leisure, sexuality, spectacle, and modernity. Manet’s Olympia (1863) and A Bar at the Folies-Bergère (1882) are given extended treatment. Originally published in 1984.
  392. Find this resource:
  393. Fried, Michael. Manet’s Modernism, or, The Face of Painting in the 1860s. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 1996.
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  395. A lengthy, extensively documented, unconventionally structured analysis. Reprints Fried’s 1969 essay on Manet’s sources (pp. 1–135) followed by an expansive response to his critics. Text then explores the concepts of absorption and theatricality as applied to key works by Manet and his contemporaries.
  396. Find this resource:
  397. Locke, Nancy. Manet and the Family Romance. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001.
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  399. Taking the term “family romance” from the writings of Sigmund Freud, the study looks to Freud, Michel Foucault, and Jacques Lacan for a psychoanalytical reading of Manet’s relationships to his parents, his son Victorine Meurent, and Berthe Morisot, and of the formative impact they had on his art.
  400. Find this resource:
  401. Tinterow, Gary, and Geneviève Lacambre. Manet/Velázquez: The French Taste for Spanish Painting. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2003.
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  403. Spanish art, particularly that of Velázquez, had a great influence on Manet, and this lengthy, highly detailed, and well-illustrated exhibition catalogue, with the collaboration of Deborah L. Roldán and Juliet Wilson-Bareau among others, charts the reception of Spanish painting in France and the United States through the 19th century and examines its significance for Manet and many other artists.
  404. Find this resource:
  405. Wilson-Bareau, Juliet. Manet, Monet, and the Gare Saint-Lazare. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 1998.
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  407. A thoroughly researched and informative exhibition catalogue. Interprets depictions of the Gare Saint-Lazare by Manet, Monet, and Caillebotte, among others, in the context of the history and configuration of this central Parisian railway station. Has particular relevance for the interpretation of Manet’s The Railway (1873).
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  409. Claude Monet
  410.  
  411. The catalogue raisonné in Wildenstein 1974–1991 provides an overview of Monet’s painting, although the French version (Wildenstein 1974–1991) documents the drawings and pastels and includes correspondence. Stuckey and Shaw 1995 is anchored by a detailed and informative chronology, illustrated with photographs and paintings. As argued in Herbert 1979, many 20th-century writers on Monet took a heavily formalist approach and considered him to have been a spontaneous painter, uninterested in subject matter and conceptual or emotional content. With the expansion of methodologies that occurred after the mid-20th century, this interpretation of Monet’s œuvre ceded to broader, more nuanced studies. Herbert 1979 is a groundbreaking essay that exemplifies the shift and analyzes Monet’s methodical approach to painting and the meaningfulness of his subjects. Adhémar, et al. 1980 provides solid documentation and analysis for some one hundred of the artist’s paintings. Spate 1992 studies Monet’s œuvre more extensively, synthesizing biography and pictorial analysis, and relating Monet and his works to the political and cultural issues of his time. Tucker 1982 gives a close and perceptive reading of Monet’s Argenteuil paintings (1871–1878), and Tucker 1989 considers the shifts seen in his later paintings, especially Monet’s works in series. Ganz and Kendall 2007 focuses on the often-ignored drawings and pastels and gives new insight into Monet’s family life and early artistic development.
  412.  
  413. Adhémar, Hélène, Anne Distel, and Sylvie Gache-Patin. Hommage à Claude Monet (1840–1926). Paris: La Réunion des Musées Nationaux, 1980.
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  415. In French. Catalogue to a large retrospective of Monet’s paintings. Divided into chronological sections, each preceded by a general essay. Detailed, well-documented entries for the works exhibited and photographs of Monet at Giverny.
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  417. Cogeval, Guy. Claude Monet, 1840–1926. Paris: Réunion des Musées Nationaux, 2010.
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  419. Catalogue to a large retrospective of Monet’s work. Thematic essays, but no entries for individual works. Contributions by Guy Cogeval, John House, Laurence Madeline, Sylvie Patin, Sylvie Patry, Anne Roquebert, Richard Thomson. French and English editions.
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  421. Ganz, James A., and Richard Kendall. The Unknown Monet: Pastels and Drawings. Williamstown, MA: Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, 2007.
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  423. Exhibition catalogue, focusing on works on paper and foregrounding this often-overlooked aspect of Monet’s art. Essays by Ganz and Kendall approach the pastels and drawings chronologically, arguing for their importance within the artist’s œuvre, and introduce previously unpublished material concerning Monet’s early years as an artist.
  424. Find this resource:
  425. Herbert, Robert. “Method and Meaning in Monet.” Art in America 67.5 (September 1979): 90–108.
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  427. Essay that brought a sea change to Monet studies. Argues against the notion of Monet as a mindlessly spontaneous painter and one with little interest in subject matter. Gives a close analysis of Monet’s methodical approach to brushwork, color, and composition, and considers the meaningful complexity of his subjects.
  428. Find this resource:
  429. Spate, Virginia. Claude Monet: The Colour of Time. London: Thames & Hudson, 1992.
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  431. An excellent study that provides both an account of the artist’s life and an analysis of the development of his painterly practice. Makes good use of Monet’s correspondence to illuminate the political and artistic contexts within which he worked and to bring fresh insights into the interpretation of his art.
  432. Find this resource:
  433. Stuckey, Charles, and Sophia Shaw. Claude Monet: 1840–1926. London: Thames & Hudson, 1995.
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  435. Exhibition catalogue with full-page illustrations of works exhibited, although with no discussion of them. This study is particularly useful because most of the text is devoted to an extensive, illustrated chronology of Monet’s life and art, including the exhibition history and sales of works.
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  437. Tucker, Paul Hayes. Monet at Argenteuil. New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 1982.
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  439. Groundbreaking study that analyzes Monet’s depictions of Argenteuil between 1871 and 1878. Closely examines the history of the town, the changes wrought by the introduction of the railroad, and Monet’s representations of the town’s most modern aspects—his landscapes of gardens and seascapes of boating on the Seine.
  440. Find this resource:
  441. Tucker, Paul Hayes. Monet in the ’90s: The Series Paintings. Boston: Museum of Fine Arts, 1989.
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  443. Looks at the shift in Monet’s art during the 1880s and at the series paintings that preoccupied him afterward: his repeated depictions of grainstacks, poplars, Rouen Cathedral, and the Normandy cliffs. Considers the significance of Monet’s work in series and the sites he chose to depict.
  444. Find this resource:
  445. Wildenstein, Daniel. Claude Monet: Biographie et catalogue raisonné. 5 vols. Lausanne, Switzerland: Bibliothèque des Arts, 1974–1991.
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  447. Available in English as Monet, or, The Triumph of Impressionism (Vol. 1); and Monet: Catalogue raisonné (Vols. 2–4) (Cologne: Taschen, 1996). This version lacks the sections on drawings and pastels—as well as the correspondence and footnotes—in the original French edition, but is useful nonetheless as an overall survey of Monet’s painting.
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  449. Berthe Morisot
  450.  
  451. A participant in seven of the eight self-generated Impressionist exhibitions, Morisot was considered by 19th-century critics to be one of the foremost Impressionists and—in the eyes of some—the painter who most fully explored Impressionist techniques. Overlooked for much of the 20th century, Morisot’s art came into prominence once again in the late 1980s. Stuckey, et al. 1987, the catalogue to a milestone exhibition of the artist’s work, integrates a study of the development of her art with biography and analyses of specific works. Adler and Garb 1987 takes a thematic approach, with five essays that consider issues related to her pictorial practice; Rouart 1987 publishes a selection of letters exchanged between Morisot and her intimates. The essays by various scholars in Edelstein 1990 emphasize the impact of gender on her life, career, and the reception of her work. Higonnet 1990, a biography, considers the artist’s exceptional achievement as both artist and woman, and three exhibition catalogues—Berthe Morisot, 1841–1895, Vallès-Bled 2006, and Pfeiffer and Hollein 2008—expand Morisot studies, with wide-ranging essays and updated information about specific works.
  452.  
  453. Adler, Kathleen, and Tamar Garb. Berthe Morisot. London: Phaidon, 1987.
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  455. Thematic, rather than chronological. Five essays consider Morisot’s background and training, her first contacts in the 1860s with Manet and the future Impressionists, her centrality within the Impressionist group, the relation of her paintings to Baudelaire’s writings, and the significance of suburban Passy in her paintings.
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  457. Berthe Morisot, 1841–1895. Palais des Beaux-Arts, Lille, and Fondation Pierre Gianadda, Martigny. Paris: Réunion des Musées Nationaux, 2002.
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  459. Catalogue to an important exhibition of oils, watercolors, pastels, drawings, and prints by Morisot and portraits of Morisot by Manet. Essays by Sylvie Patry and Hugues Wilhelm, chronology, and detailed discussions of exhibited works. In French.
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  461. Edelstein, T. J., ed. Perspectives on Morisot. New York: Hudson Hills, 1990.
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  463. Adapted from a 1988 symposium. Essays by Kathleen Adler, Beatrice Farwell, Tamar Garb, Anne Higonnet, Suzanne Lindsay, Linda Nochlin, and Anne Schirrmeister. Combines fresh readings of Morisot’s paintings with a deconstruction of the gender stereotypes that determined much of the earlier writing and, thus, diminished the significance of her art.
  464. Find this resource:
  465. Higonnet, Anne. Berthe Morisot. New York: Harper & Row, 1990.
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  467. Biography that argues for Morisot as one of the rare 19th-century women artists who managed to balance a successful career with a rich domestic and social life. Draws on previously unpublished letters and journals to elucidate how Morisot negotiated the usually impassable gulf between the spheres “artist” and “woman.”
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  469. Pfeiffer, Ingrid, and Max Hollein, eds. Women Impressionists. Translated by Bronwen Saunders and John Tittensor. Frankfurt: Schirn Kunsthalle, 2008.
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  471. Exhibition catalogue, with ten essays, including Linda Nochlin’s “Morisot’s Wet Nurse: The Construction of Work and Leisure in Impressionist Painting”; Sylvie Patry’s “‘Catching a Touch of the Ephemeral’: Berthe Morisot and Impressionism”; and Hugues Wilhelm’s “Seven Unpublished Letters from Mary Cassatt to Berthe Morisot and Her Daughter, Julie Manet.”
  472. Find this resource:
  473. Rouart, Denis, ed. Berthe Morisot: The Correspondence with Her Family and Her Friends. Translated by Betty W. Hubbard. Introduced and annotated by Kathleen Adler and Tamar Garb. Mt. Kisco, NY: Moyer Bell, 1987.
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  475. Includes letters exchanged with her mother, her sister Edma, the Impressionists, and Stéphane Mallarmé, as selected and woven into a commentary by Rouart (her grandson). Gives insight into her painting career and network of intimates, although the quoting of excerpts, rather than complete letters, leaves many readers asking for more.
  476. Find this resource:
  477. Stuckey, Charles F., William P. Scott, and Suzanne G. Lindsay. Berthe Morisot: Impressionist. New York: Hudson Hills, 1987.
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  479. Major retrospective of Morisot’s work, significant for the extensive and serious treatment given her paintings. Well-illustrated catalogue includes a lengthy, heavily documented essay on Morisot’s art and life (Stuckey) and a consideration of her working methods and painterly technique (Scott).
  480. Find this resource:
  481. Vallès-Bled, Maïthé. Berthe Morisot: Regards pluriels=Plural Vision. Musée de Lodève, France. Milan: Edizioni Gabriele Mazzotta, 2006.
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  483. Text in French and English, although the English is awkward. Essays on the critical reception of Morisot’s work (Maïthé Vallès-Bled) and the collecting of her work by her Impressionist colleagues (Hugues Wilhelm). Chronology and catalogue entries with provenance, exhibition history, and substantial bibliography.
  484. Find this resource:
  485. Camille Pissarro
  486.  
  487. Camille Pissarro, 1830–1903 provides a solid introduction to Pissarro’s paintings and works on paper, fans, and ceramics. The excellent catalogue raisonné in Pissarro and Snollaerts 2005 concentrates on the artist’s paintings and includes documentation, essays, chronology, and bibliography. Shikes and Harper 1980 treats Pissarro’s biography, and Brettell and Lloyd 1980 focuses on his drawings in the Ashmolean Museum and moves outward to discuss their role and evolution in his œuvre. Pissarro 2005 reconsiders the friendship between Camille Pissarro and Cézanne via a close examination of their paintings from the mid-1860s to the mid-1880s. Bailly-Herzberg 1980–1991 is a thoughtfully documented and skillfully annotated collection of Pissarro’s letters, which is only available in French as of the mid-2010s. Rewald 1972 brings together correspondence exchanged between the painter and his son Lucien; most of these letters are also available on the Internet.
  488.  
  489. Bailly-Herzberg, Janine, ed. Correspondance de Camille Pissarro. 5 vols. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1980–1991.
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  491. Pissarro was a prolific, articulate correspondent, and his letters have left an invaluable chronicle of his painting, politics, life, and reactions to the events of his time. An extraordinary compilation, excellently organized, with highly informative documentation. In French.
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  493. Brettell, Richard, and Christopher Lloyd. A Catalogue of the Drawings by Camille Pissarro in the Ashmolean Museum. Oxford: Clarendon, 1980.
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  495. The Ashmolean Museum has an unparalleled collection of nearly 400 drawings, which span Pissarro’s career, as well as a rich cache of archival material. The introduction to this finely researched catalogue explores, among other things, the significance of drawing for Pissarro and the evolution of his technique.
  496. Find this resource:
  497. Camille Pissarro, 1830–1903. Hayward Gallery (London), Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais (France), and Museum of Fine Arts (Boston). London: Arts Council of Great Britain, 1980.
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  499. Excellent catalogue to a major retrospective including about one hundred paintings, plus drawings, prints, fans, and ceramics. Concise, informative entries by Christopher Lloyd, Anne Distel, Barbara Stern Shapiro. Essays by Richard Brettell and Françoise Cachin. Illustrated chronology by Janine Bailly-Herzberg. Detailed bibliography by Martha Ward.
  500. Find this resource:
  501. Pissarro, Joachim. Pioneering Modern Painting: Cézanne & Pissarro (1865–1885). New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2005.
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  503. Important study of the artistic reciprocity evidenced in paintings by Cézanne and Camille Pissarro, during the roughly twenty-year period when they often worked together. Exhibition catalogue with high-quality illustrations and close-up details that convey each artist’s handling of paint.
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  505. Pissarro, Joachim, and Claire Durand-Ruel Snollaerts. Pissarro: Critical Catalogue of Paintings. 3 vols. Translated by Mark Hutchinson and Michael Taylor. Milan: Skira, 2005.
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  507. Although entitled a Critical Catalogue, the publication is actually a catalogue raisonné. Volume 1 comprises essays, chronology, bibliography, exhibition list, and auction sales; Volumes 2 and 3 consist of a catalogue raisonné of the paintings. Expertly designed, produced, and illustrated. Includes letters exchanged between Pissarro and the art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel.
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  509. Rewald, John, ed. Camille Pissarro: Letters to His Son. 3d rev. enl. ed. Translated by Lionel Abel. Mamaroneck, NY: Appel, 1972.
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  511. Selection of letters (1883–1903), with notes and commentary with the assistance of Lucien Pissarro. Chosen by Lucien—the artist’s son and the letters’ recipient—these discuss a broad range of topics. Various editions, but this one includes letters from Lucien to his father. Available online.
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  513. Shiff, Richard. “Review Article.” Art Bulletin 66.4 (December 1984): 681–690.
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  515. An important review that considers the positive aspects and the methodological shortcomings of the major publications on Pissarro that appeared in 1980 and 1981.
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  517. Shikes, Ralph E., and Paula Harper. Pissarro: His Life and Work. New York: Horizon, 1980.
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  519. A biography that follows the artist from his youth in St. Thomas through his long career as a painter in France. Draws on letters and other archival materials inaccessible until 1975 and emphasizes the varied, sometimes contradictory, aspects of Pissarro’s personality. Relatively little art historical analysis.
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  521. Pierre-Auguste Renoir
  522.  
  523. The long-held stereotype of Renoir portrayed him as an aesthetic lightweight, who produced nothing more than sunlit views populated by vapid, carefree figures. Both White 2010, a biography of Renoir originally published in 1984, and John House’s essay “Renoir’s Worlds” in Renoir counter that interpretation by bringing forward and analyzing the various complexities of the man and his art. Further illuminating and deepening perceptions of Renoir can be found in three publications by Colin Bailey, all of which provide insightful analyses, solid documentation, and abundant illustrations. Bailey 1997 is an excellent study of Renoir’s portraits, Bailey 2007 addresses the landscapes, and Bailey 2012 focuses on Renoir’s large-scale figure paintings and includes an updated bibliography. House 1997 astutely studies Renoir’s La Promenade and contemporary genre painting. Herbert 2000 compiles and analyzes Renoir’s writings about art, and Godfroy 1995 reproduces his correspondence with the dealer Paul Durand-Ruel.
  524.  
  525. Bailey, Colin B. Renoir’s Portraits: Impressions of an Age. Ottawa, ON: National Gallery of Canada, 1997.
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  527. Portraits occupied Renoir more than any other Impressionist, and this extensive, well-illustrated exhibition catalogue follows the artist’s development of the genre throughout his career. Includes biographies of Renoir’s subjects and essays by Linda Nochlin and Anne Distel.
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  529. Bailey, Colin B., Renoir: Landscapes, 1865–1883. London: National Gallery, 2007.
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  531. Catalogue of an exhibition of an often-overlooked aspect of Renoir’s art, with contributions by Ronald McDonald Parker, Christopher Riopelle, John House, Simon Kelly, and John Zarobell. Essays on mid-19th-century landscape painting (Kelly), Renoir’s landscapes (House and Bailey), and his depictions of Paris (Riopelle). Detailed discussions of each exhibited work, chronology of sites depicted by Renoir, and lengthy bibliography.
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  533. Bailey, Colin B. Renoir, Impressionism, and the Full-Length Painting. New York: Frick Collection, 2012.
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  535. Insightful exhibition catalogue centered on nine of Renoir’s large-scale paintings. Essays on each painting and on “An Impressionist Painting Large: Renoir, Exhibitions, and the Full-Length Format, 1863–1885.” Illustrated chronology and extensive bibliography.
  536. Find this resource:
  537. Godfroy, Caroline Durand-Ruel, ed. Correspondance de Renoir et Durand-Ruel. 2 vols. Lausanne, Switzerland: Bibliothèque des Arts, 1995.
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  539. Letters between Renoir and the art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel. Particularly insightful concerning Renoir’s decision to exhibit at the Salon and the shift in approach in his paintings of the 1880s. In French.
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  541. Herbert, Robert L. Nature’s Workshop: Renoir’s Writings on the Decorative Arts. New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 2000.
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  543. Reprints the known writings (some previously unpublished) in both French and English. Substantive essay analyzes the texts, relates them to decorative arts theories in the period and to Renoir’s own work, and shows the artist to have been more seriously concerned with aesthetic theories than previously thought.
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  545. House, John. Pierre-Auguste Renoir: La Promenade. Los Angeles: Getty Museum, 1997.
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  547. Lucidly synthesized essay that considers genre paintings around 1870—the year La Promenade was created—and how they were interpreted. Analyzes La Promenade in terms of setting, subject, and technique; relates each aspect to contemporary works; and situates the painting within Renoir’s career and the development of Impressionism.
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  549. Renoir. Hayward Gallery (London), Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais (France), and Museum of Fine Arts (Boston). London: Arts Council of Great Britain, 1985.
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  551. Exhibition catalogue with essays by John House (“Renoir’s Worlds”), Anne Distel (“Renoir’s Collectors: The Pâtissier, the Priest, and the Prince”), and Lawrence Gowing (“Renoir’s Sentiment and Sense”). Often-extensive catalogue entries by Distel and House.
  552. Find this resource:
  553. White, Barbara Ehrlich. Renoir: His Life, Art, and Letters. New York: Abrams, 2010.
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  555. Reprint of the 1984 edition. Accessible biography that incorporates passages from Renoir’s letters to reconstruct his personal life and relationships with the other Impressionists. Contrasts the hardships and difficulties described in the letters to the often idyllic and sun-filled world he depicted on canvas.
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  557. Affiliated Painters
  558.  
  559. Frédéric Bazille met several of the painters who became known as “Impressionists” when they were art students together in Paris in the early 1860s. Through the decade, Bazille worked closely with Claude Monet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir and joined their protests against the Salon’s exclusionary policies. Although he undoubtedly would have been a significant participant in the group’s exhibitions, he was killed in 1870 during the Franco-Prussian War, at the age of twenty-eight. Schulman 1995 is a rigorously documented catalogue raisonné in French, which considers Bazille’s life in detail and presents a full complement of letters written by and to the painter. English-language texts include Jourdan 1993, which provides a well-illustrated series of essays and catalogue of exhibited works, and Pitman 1998, which sets Bazille’s paintings in the context of the modernist concerns of the 1860s. After several years of studying traditional painting, Gustave Caillebotte joined the Impressionists in 1876, working and exhibiting with them into the 1880s. Varnedoe 1987 offers a sound introduction to Caillebotte’s work and pays particular attention to the painter’s spatial constructions and their relation to photography. Morton and Shackelford 2015 broadens the discourse by considering the painter and his work from the perspectives of social history, contemporary art criticism, and modernist literature. The only American painter in the group, Mary Cassatt trained in Philadelphia and, after settling in Paris in the 1870s, began to exhibit with the Impressionists in 1879. Barter and Hirschler 1998 discusses both paintings and pastels and offers interpretive essays, a lengthy chronology, an exhibition history, and a bibliography. Mathews 1984 provides an informative collection of Cassatt’s correspondence, Pollock 1998 broke new ground in bringing social history and feminism to bear on the analysis of Cassatt’s art, and Pfeiffer and Hollein 2008 further expands the approaches to her work. Breeskin 1979 focuses on Cassatt’s printmaking, with both a catalogue raisonné and an explanation of her techniques.
  560.  
  561. Barter, Judith A., and Erica E. Hirshler. Mary Cassatt: Modern Woman. Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 1998.
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  563. Substantive, well-illustrated catalogue, although the subtitle Modern Woman caused some controversy. Informative essays by George T. M. Shackelford, Kevin Sharp, Harriet K. Stratis, and Andrew J. Walker on Cassatt’s artistic education, her paintings and pastels, her relationship with Degas, and her influence on art collecting in the United States. Includes a detailed chronology, exhibition history, and bibliography.
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  565. Breeskin, Adelyn Dohme. Mary Cassatt: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Graphic Work. 2d ed. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution, 1979.
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  567. Explores the relation between her prints and paintings and analyzes her printmaking techniques—drypoint, hard- and soft-ground etching, aquatint, and lithography—giving special attention to her important series of ten color prints.
  568. Find this resource:
  569. Jourdan, Alethe. Frédéric Bazille: Prophet of Impressionism. Translated by John Goodman. New York: Brooklyn Museum, 1993.
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  571. English edition of an exhibition catalogue produced by the Musée Fabre in France. Five essays on various aspects of Bazille’s life and art, illustrated chronology, and entries discussing individual paintings and drawings.
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  573. Mathews, Nancy Mowll, ed. Cassatt and Her Circle: Selected Letters. New York: Abbeville, 1984.
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  575. Includes over 200 letters written by Cassatt, her family, and her friends, with a running commentary and annotations. Letters from the late 1870s and early 1880s give insight into the organization of the Impressionist exhibitions, the reception of Cassatt’s paintings in France, and the artist’s promotion of Impressionist paintings with American buyers.
  576. Find this resource:
  577. Morton, Mary, and George Shackelford. Gustave Caillebotte: The Painter’s Eye. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015.
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  579. Richly illustrated exhibition catalogue featuring about fifty works from 1876 to 1885 when Caillebotte worked closely and exhibited with the Impressionists. Eight wide-ranging thematic essays by various scholars, biographical chronology, and detailed catalogue entries.
  580. Find this resource:
  581. Pfeiffer, Ingrid, and Max Hollein, eds. Women Impressionists. Translated by Bronwen Saunders and John Tittensor. Frankfurt: Schirn Kunsthalle, 2008.
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  583. Exhibition catalogue. Ten essays including Griselda Pollock’s “Mary Cassatt: The Touch and the Gaze,” Pamela Iviniski’s “So Firm and Powerful a Hand: Mary Cassatt’s Techniques and Questions of Gender,” and Hugues Wilhelm’s “Seven Unpublished Letters from Mary Cassatt to Berthe Morisot and Her Daughter, Julie Manet.”
  584. Find this resource:
  585. Pitman, Dianne W. Bazille: Purity, Pose, and Painting in the 1860s. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998.
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  587. Takes a theoretical approach that traces Bazille’s engagement with issues of modernist purity and of the figures’ relation to the beholder/artist and beholder/viewer. Also considers the problem of artistic tradition for Bazille and other modernist painters in the 1860s.
  588. Find this resource:
  589. Pollock, Griselda. Mary Cassatt: Painter of Modern Women. London: Thames & Hudson, 1998.
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  591. An important revisionist study informed by social history and psychoanalytic and feminist theory. Considers Cassatt’s artistic training, her years with the Impressionists, and her defiance of gender stereotypes. Opens and closes with analyses of the psychological complexity of the themes of women and children frequent in her work.
  592. Find this resource:
  593. Schulman, Michel. Frédéric Bazille, 1841–1870: Catalogue raisonné, Peintures, dessins, pastels, aquarelles; Sa vie, son œuvre, sa correspondance. Paris: Éditions de l’Amateur, 1995.
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  595. Thoroughly documented biography, plus bibliography and catalogue entries for individual works. Illustrated in color and black and white. Includes some 300 letters to and from Bazille (nearly all the known correspondence). In French.
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  597. Varnedoe, Kirk. Gustave Caillebotte. New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 1987.
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  599. Revised, expanded, and updated version of catalogue to a 1976 exhibition. A detailed biography, several interpretative essays (by Varnedoe and Peter Galassi), commentaries on individual works, and a lengthy bibliography. Extensively documented and essentially formalist in approach.
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  601. Pictorial Themes
  602.  
  603. The literature on Impressionism includes significant publications devoted to a single painting, a single locale, or a single genre of an artist’s work. Brown 1994 gives extensive analysis to Degas’s A Cotton Office in New Orleans and, among other observations, relates this painting about business to his family’s financial situation and his uneasiness about the business of art. Kendall, et al. 1998 focuses on Degas’s Little Dancer Aged Fourteen and moves outward to address his sculpture in general. In regard to Manet, Collins 1996 includes a dozen interpretations of A Bar at the Folies-Bergère, the essays in Tucker 1998 address Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe (Luncheon on the Grass), and Rubin 1994 deals perceptively with the artist’s often-ignored still lifes. Wilson-Bareau 1992 investigates The Execution of Maximilian, and Wilson-Bareau and Degener 2003 brings new information to light concerning Manet’s depictions of the battleship Kearsarge and his 1860s seascapes in general. Rathbone, et al. 1996 takes Renoir’s Luncheon of the Boating Party as its subject and broadens the topic by considering the significance of the Seine River for Impressionist painters.
  604.  
  605. Brown, Marilyn R. Degas and the Business of Art. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press for the College Art Association, 1994.
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  607. Centers on A Cotton Office in New Orleans (1873). Well-documented analyses of the unstable finances of Degas’s family, the history of the cotton industry, and the painting’s reception and purchase in France. Links the painting’s ambiguities with Degas’s ambivalence toward the art market and commercial success.
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  609. Collins, Bradford, ed. 12 Views of Manet’s Bar. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996.
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  611. Twelve essays, each by a different contributor, that analyze Manet’s A Bar at the Folies-Bergère from various perspectives—from traditional formal, stylistic, and historical analyses to Marxist, psychoanalytical, feminist, and semiotic strategies. Introduction by Richard Shiff.
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  613. Kendall, Richard, Douglas W. Druick, and Arthur Beale. Degas and the Little Dancer. New Haven, CT, and London: Yale University Press, 1998.
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  615. Exhibition catalogue organized around Degas’s major sculpture, Little Dancer Aged Fourteen. Essays on the dance world, the making of the sculpture, and its critical reception (all by Kendall); its relation to other works by Degas (Druick); and its casting in bronze (Beale).
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  617. Rathbone, Eliza E., Katherine Rothkopf, Richard Brettell, and Charles Moffett. Impressionists on the Seine: A Celebration of Renoir’s Luncheon of the Boating Party. Washington, DC: Phillips Collection, 1996.
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  619. Exhibition catalogue that considers Luncheon of the Boating Party in depth, tracing its exhibition history and provenance and analyzing changes revealed by X-rays. Also includes essays on the Seine River and its frequent appearance in Impressionist paintings.
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  621. Rubin, James H. Manet’s Silence and the Poetics of Bouquets. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994.
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  623. Probes the impact of Manet’s paintings on the viewer and explores Manet’s relationship with Baudelaire, Mallarmé, and Zola. Connecting Manet’s still lifes with Mallarmé’s poetry, theorizes these floral bouquets as metaphors for Manet’s painterly practice as a whole.
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  625. Tucker, Paul Hayes, ed. Manet’s Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe. Cambridge, UK, and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
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  627. Essays by Tucker, Anne McCauley, John House, Carol Armstrong, Nancy Locke, and Marcia Pointon address Luncheon on the Grass, one of Manet’s most enigmatic, recalcitrant works, and discuss its reception, contexts, indeterminate subject, and psychological relation to Manet’s family, as well as the role of Victorine Meurent.
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  629. Wilson-Bareau, Juliet. Manet: The Execution of the Emperor Maximilian. London: National Gallery, 1992.
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  631. Essays by Douglas Johnson (Napoleon III’s intervention in Mexico, which led to Maximilian’s assassination), Wilson-Bareau (Manet’s political leanings and the background to his depiction of Maximilian’s execution), and John House (Manet’s unique approach to history painting).
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  633. Wilson-Bareau, Juliet, and David C. Degener. Manet and the American Civil War: The Battle of U.S.S. Kearsarge and C.S.S. Alabama. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2003.
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  635. A thorough study of The Battle of the Kearsarge and the Alabama and The Kearsarge at Boulogne (both 1864). Includes much documentation concerning Manet’s sea voyage in 1848, the confrontation between the Kearsarge and the Alabama, and his other seascapes of the mid- to late 1860s.
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