Monet: A Retrospective

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Interweaving reproductions of Monet's paintings with contemporaneous newspaper reviews, articles and interviews, this magnificently illustrated album (134 color and 120 black-and-white plates, plus 20 color fold-outs) shows how the public first reviled, then glorified Impressionism. Shrill ridicule and begrudging praise gave way to solid appreciation, triggered by comments such as this from Emile Zola: "His paintings speak whole volumes to me about energy and truth. . . . Here is a man among all these eunuchs." Novelist J. K. Huysmans found Monet's early canvases "sloppy" and "hasty," but the painter's friend, poet Stephane Mallarme, wrote, "I have never seen a boat poised more lightly on the water than in his pictures." Another supporter, Georges Clemenceau, praised the Water Lilies for daring to achieve the impossible. Critic Clement Greenberg defined Monet's enduring strength: "Impressionism was, and expressed, his innermost experience." Stuckey, curator at the National Gallery of Art, smoothly stitches together the commentaries to form a unique approach to understanding Monet. November 10
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Stuckey, curator of 19th-century European painting at the National Gallery of Art, has carefully amassed and selected for this monumental volume the criticism of Monet written during the Impressionist master's lifetime plus two modern-day interpretations by William Seitz and Clement Greenberg. And what critiques! Annotations (really literary vignettes) identify each entry's author and set the stage for the commentary, from A. Wolff (1876)``outspokenly hostile''to G. Clemenceau (1929)``Monet's eye was nothing less than the whole man.'' The intent of the book is not to analyze but to present all aspects of Monet's long career. Interviews with the painter himself and references to the pertinent reproductions of his work complete the book. There are 122 fine full-color plates (including gatefolds) and a lengthy chronology. For academic and other large art collections. Gloria K. Rensch, formerly with Vigo Cty. P.L., Terre Haute, Ind.
Copyright 1985 Reed Business Information, Inc.