Modernity and Modernism: French Painting in the Nineteenth Century: Book 1 (Open University: Modern Art - Practices & Debates) - Hardcover

"Each of the four volumes, which can stand alone, is well produced, reasonably priced, and replete with high-quality black-and-white and color plates. . . . The set presents the consistency and wide appeal of a survey while at the same time providing individually focused and methodologically explicit essays in the form of chapters on specialized topics relating to limited periods of time. . . . The intellectual integrity that permeates each volume, the excellent production qualities, and the overall superb quality of this specialized survey of modern art--all recommend this set highly for academic collections and for large public library collections emphasizing modern and contemporary European and American art."--"Choice"

This volume is part of a four-volume series about art and its interpretation in the 19th and 20th centuries. The books provide an introduction to modern European and American art and criticism that should be valuable both to students and to the general reader. This first volume focuses on aspects of Realism, Impressionism and Post-Impressionism in Paris between 1848 and 1900. Discussing works by Courbet, Manet, Monet, Pissarro, Cezanne, Morisot and other great painters of the period, the authors demonstrate how some historians view this art as representative of the social, historical, and economic circumstances in which it was produced, how the painterly effects of the art are evaluated and how a feminist perspective can help to explain art works and change our perception of them.