Monet

World of Art

by James H. Rubin

From a world authority on impressionism and nineteenth-century French art comes this new addition to the World of Art series on the art and life of Claude Monet. One of the most famous and admired painters of all time, Claude Monet (1840– 1926) was the architect of impressionism―a revolution that gave birth to modern art. His technique of painting outside at the seashore or in city streets was as radically new as his subject the landscapes and middle-class pastimes of a newly industrialized Paris. Working with unprecedented immediacy and authenticity, Monet claimed that his work was both natural and true, and therefore, entirely novel. In Monet , James H. Rubin, one of the world’s foremost specialists in nineteenth-century French art, traces Monet’s development, from his early work as a caricaturist to the late paintings of water lilies and his garden at Giverny. Rubin explores the cultural currents that helped shape Monet’s work, including the utopian thought that gave rise to his politics, his interest in Japanese prints and gardening, and his relationship with earlier French landscape painters and contemporaries such as E´douard Manet and Pierre-Auguste Renoir. Featuring more than 150 color illustrations of his key works, Rubin establishes Monet as the inspiration for generations of avant-garde artists and a true patriarch of modern art. 159 color illustrations

Genres: Nonfiction, Art History, Art

224 pages, Paperback

Published April 14, 2020

Reviews

[Corbin Routier · Rating 3 out of 5]

The author provides good information about some of Monet's work, types of art styles, and a general chronological telling of his life. What I dislike is the author speaking for Monet, stating what he believes to have inspired Monet, or implying such in and of itself with zero support for his claims. His pontificating often becomes outlandish - Pg. 139 "... makes the picture seem to reach beyond time towards some other dimension, one immeasurable by standard means."