Impressionism

Five eminent American museums join in an unprecedented cooperative venture to create this magnificent volume.

By pooling all their Impressionist and Post-Impressionist masterpieces, the Carnegie Museum of Art, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, the Nelson-Aktins Museum of Art, the Saint Louis Art Museum, and the Toledo Museum of Art have gathered a stunning panorama that rivals any collection in the world. Four key artists receive particularly strong representation: there are 13 pieces by Degas, 8 by van Gogh, 12 by Monet, and 10 by Pissarro. But there are also numerous examples by other masters of the movement, including Cassatt, Cézanne, Gaugin, Manet, Morisot, Renoir, Seurat, Sisley, and Toulouse-Lautrec. Each work appears in a full-color reproduction, with an essay by Marc S. Gerstein, an Associate Professor of Art History, exploring in full its history, technique, and iconography.

Featuring 85 full-page color plates, this jewel of an album showcases one of the most brilliant impressionist exhibitions ever mounted. The fine-tuned plates recreate the incandescent chromatics in a Degas pastel of dancers, or the sparkling streaks in a Mary Cassatt portrait. There are works by celebrated impressionists--Renoir, Manet, Pissarro, Degas, etc.--and less well-known figures such as Gustave Caillebotte and Berthe Morisot. The monograph embraces neo-impressionist work such as the country- and cityscapes of Paul Signac, as well as Van Gogh's windmills, Gauguin's South Seas paradise and Pierre Bonnard's symbolic transformations of the ordinary. Facing-page commentaries by art historian Gerstein illuminate historical and personal contexts as well as impressionist modes of perception and knowing. Five museums collaborated on this show that will travel among them: Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh; Minneapolis Institute of Arts; Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, Mo.; Saint Louis Art Museum; and Toledo Museum of Art. Literary Guild selection.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.