Author Description

This first comprehensive presentation of this collection includes paintings by Monet, Degas, Renoir, Boudin and Manet among other innovative artists of the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist period. Each painting is presented with descriptions detailing the artist's motifs and context of the work in the Impressionist era. The Impressionists began one of the richest chapters in the history of arta a chapter that in a sense never ended, because Impressionism, originally reviled, is still universally popular. It also had an especially long life as an active school, because its concentrations on the visible led generations of artists to an exploration of nature as a source for colour that could function independently of form. Gradually escaping its traditional role as an identifier of objects, Impressionist colour founded a realm where painting is reality, a unique world of sensory delight. Their successors, only elaborated further on this concept. This title, with its essays and over 100 colour plates, studies the evolution and reinvention of painting through examining the works of masters of the time in context to their fellow artists. It provides a thorough focus of the dramatic artistic development of the century between 1850 and 1950 through the remarkable pieces of this collection.