Origins of Impressionism, the metropolitan museum or art

This remarkable exhibition catalog was published in conjunction with an important retrospective exhibition first held at the Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais in Paris and then at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The book opens predictably with the well-documented and critically researched Salon of 1859. However, the subsequent eight chapters discuss how various artists interpreted specific genre (e.g., history painting, the nude, still life) while employing impressionist technique. These sections are profusely illustrated and well documented with supplementary photographs. The footnotes are cleverly arranged as sideheads on each page, which makes this book a more useful tool for further research, but unfortunately they were not translated from the original French. The remaining 200 pages include a chronology of works in the catalog, a historical chronology from 1859 to 1870, and the exhibit catalog itself arranged alphabetically by artist. The thorough, scholarly apparatus provided for each exhibited work is exemplary. This book should be acquired by all types of libraries for knowledgeable readers in the field.
P. Steven Thomas, Illinois State Univ., Normal
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.