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Historia del impresionismo
La «Historia del impresionismo» de John Rewald es, desde su primera aparición en 1946, el «clásico» sobre el tema. La ventaja del libro de Rewald estriba en el hecho de que sigue la génesis, la historia y la disolución del grupo en su totalidad y como grupo, en una visión mucho más amplia, completa y objetiva que los estudios, forzosamente parciales, dedicados a cada uno de los pintores. Las diferencias que caracterizaban a cada uno de ellos se ven resaltadas de este modo frente a la obra de los demás, especialmente en el período comprendido entre 1874, fecha de los primeros éxitos de los impresionistas, y 1886, año en que el grupo ya se ha disuelto.
Cierran el volumen un apéndice, una riquísima bibliografía comentada y un utilísimo índice de nombres propios que contribuyen a hacer del presente libro un gran clásico de la historia del arte y un modelo de rigor metodológico.
Cierran el volumen un apéndice, una riquísima bibliografía comentada y un utilísimo índice de nombres propios que contribuyen a hacer del presente libro un gran clásico de la historia del arte y un modelo de rigor metodológico.
538 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1900
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
February 2, 2022
Opera fondamentale, direi necessaria se si sono viste spesso le opere degli impressionisti nelle mostre e nei musei. La prima versione di questo saggio risale agli anni '30, ma John Rewald lo ha costantemente aggiornato, fino a questa edizione del 1973. Si tratta di un testo di eccezionale erudizione, lo testimonia la vastissima bibliografia commentata, eppure è leggibilissimo. È una ricostruzione storica completa di quei 25 anni in cui l’impressionismo nasce e lentamente, tra mille difficoltà, si afferma.
Rewald fa un larghissimo uso di fonti originarie, di testimonianze dirette, di pubblicazioni dell'epoca e porta avanti in parallelo le vicende della dozzina di pittori protagonisti di quella rivoluzione. A partire dalla metà dell’800, i giovani artisti arrivano a Parigi, spesso nell'ostilità familiare, cercano di assorbire le suggestioni che la Parigi dell’epoca offriva, nei musei, negli atelier, nei caffè e condividono le loro riflessioni, elaborando a poco a poco un nuovo modo di dipingere.
Impossibile riassumere un'opera così completa. Un raro esempio di opera straordinariamente documentata che è anche un vero piacere per il lettore. Riccamente illustrata a colori.
Rewald fa un larghissimo uso di fonti originarie, di testimonianze dirette, di pubblicazioni dell'epoca e porta avanti in parallelo le vicende della dozzina di pittori protagonisti di quella rivoluzione. A partire dalla metà dell’800, i giovani artisti arrivano a Parigi, spesso nell'ostilità familiare, cercano di assorbire le suggestioni che la Parigi dell’epoca offriva, nei musei, negli atelier, nei caffè e condividono le loro riflessioni, elaborando a poco a poco un nuovo modo di dipingere.
Impossibile riassumere un'opera così completa. Un raro esempio di opera straordinariamente documentata che è anche un vero piacere per il lettore. Riccamente illustrata a colori.
March 4, 2013
I read this years ago. May be now a bit dated, but still a very solid and complete account of Impressionism. I should read it again.
April 4, 2009
I was looking for more work written by John Rewald
because when I lived in NYork I was interested in the History of Impressionism and Post Impressionism.
I bought THE HISTORY OF IMPRESSIONISM BY
JOHN REWALD.
It is an excellent non-fiction book.
Today I was looking for the book
A Catalogue Raisonne
By John Rewald
In collaboration with Walter Feilchenfeldt and Jayne Warman.
Illustrated. 927 pages; 2 volumes. Abrams.
$400
and I read a review of NYTimes about Rewald's work. That decided me
to read again The History of Impressionism this summer!
Here it follows the NY Times review:
John Rewald is probably best known for his widely translated histories of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, which remain basic books on the subjects more or less half a century after they were published. This is because he did the indispensable job: he got to know the people who knew the artists or were their closest relatives and wrote down everything he learned. He knew van Gogh's family and met Renoir's brother, whom he described years later as a ''dried-up little bonhomme'' affecting ''petty airs which only his good humor and nonchalance saved from ridicule.'' Rewald was famously not one to mince words.
To say he became well-connected is to put it mildly. He was the literary executor for Felix Feneon, the dealer and critic who championed Seurat. He befriended the aged sculptor Maillol. He was close to the sons of Pissarro, and they entrusted him with their father's correspondence.
In 1936, when the study of art history at the Sorbonne went no further than the era of Delacroix, he wrote his dissertation on Cezanne by digging through newspaper clippings and sales catalogues that no scholar before him had bothered to look at and by interviewing firsthand sources like Maurice Denis, Paul Gachet, Blanche Monet, Paul Signac, Denise Leblond-Zola and Ambroise Vollard. He also photographed sites that Cezanne painted, like Mont Sainte-Victoire and the grounds at Jan de Bouffon, Cezanne's family house near Aix, before time had changed them too much. Thus Rewald himself became a crucial link to a vanished epoch.
He died in 1994 at 81 after a life of exceptional productivity. Even in 1943, when there was enough going on in the world to distract a German-Jewish refugee like him, he published four books.
Yet he never got around to completing his major project, a catalogue of all of Cezanne's paintings. Perhaps after 30-odd years of work on it he could not imagine life without it and so put off its completion until, shortly before his death, he decided to entrust what he had done to Jayne Warman, his research assistant, and to Walter Feilchenfeldt, a Zurich dealer whose father had been Rewald's longtime friend, letting them prepare it for publication. ''The Paintings of Paul Cezanne: A Catalogue Raisonne,'' finally published in two volumes, is as much a monument to Rewald as it is to the artist he revered.
because when I lived in NYork I was interested in the History of Impressionism and Post Impressionism.
I bought THE HISTORY OF IMPRESSIONISM BY
JOHN REWALD.
It is an excellent non-fiction book.
Today I was looking for the book
A Catalogue Raisonne
By John Rewald
In collaboration with Walter Feilchenfeldt and Jayne Warman.
Illustrated. 927 pages; 2 volumes. Abrams.
$400
and I read a review of NYTimes about Rewald's work. That decided me
to read again The History of Impressionism this summer!
Here it follows the NY Times review:
John Rewald is probably best known for his widely translated histories of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, which remain basic books on the subjects more or less half a century after they were published. This is because he did the indispensable job: he got to know the people who knew the artists or were their closest relatives and wrote down everything he learned. He knew van Gogh's family and met Renoir's brother, whom he described years later as a ''dried-up little bonhomme'' affecting ''petty airs which only his good humor and nonchalance saved from ridicule.'' Rewald was famously not one to mince words.
To say he became well-connected is to put it mildly. He was the literary executor for Felix Feneon, the dealer and critic who championed Seurat. He befriended the aged sculptor Maillol. He was close to the sons of Pissarro, and they entrusted him with their father's correspondence.
In 1936, when the study of art history at the Sorbonne went no further than the era of Delacroix, he wrote his dissertation on Cezanne by digging through newspaper clippings and sales catalogues that no scholar before him had bothered to look at and by interviewing firsthand sources like Maurice Denis, Paul Gachet, Blanche Monet, Paul Signac, Denise Leblond-Zola and Ambroise Vollard. He also photographed sites that Cezanne painted, like Mont Sainte-Victoire and the grounds at Jan de Bouffon, Cezanne's family house near Aix, before time had changed them too much. Thus Rewald himself became a crucial link to a vanished epoch.
He died in 1994 at 81 after a life of exceptional productivity. Even in 1943, when there was enough going on in the world to distract a German-Jewish refugee like him, he published four books.
Yet he never got around to completing his major project, a catalogue of all of Cezanne's paintings. Perhaps after 30-odd years of work on it he could not imagine life without it and so put off its completion until, shortly before his death, he decided to entrust what he had done to Jayne Warman, his research assistant, and to Walter Feilchenfeldt, a Zurich dealer whose father had been Rewald's longtime friend, letting them prepare it for publication. ''The Paintings of Paul Cezanne: A Catalogue Raisonne,'' finally published in two volumes, is as much a monument to Rewald as it is to the artist he revered.
April 19, 2014
I first read this book in college, over twenty years ago, and was so impressed with it that I read Rewald's follow up to it, The History of Post-Impressionism. I found of used copy and decided to reread it. It was almost as great as I remembered.
The book is lively, heavily illustrated with photographs both in color and in black and white, and it covers to period from roughly 1855 to 1905 when the art movement called - derisively at first - Impressionism was born, matured, and ultimately became accepted. It chronicles the lives and struggles of artists such as Monet, Degas, Pisarro, Renoir, Manet, Moriset, Cezanne, Cassatt, and others. A struggle it truly was. What impressed me as a student and impresses me still is how hard they worked and with so little reward or recognition. Indeed, they were met with derision, laughter, and ridicule. It took decades for modest success to be achieved.
Their opponent was the establishment in the form of the French Academy, which controlled the artistic tastes of the time and for the world. Painters who today are largely forgotten, such as Cabanel, Gerome, and Bouguereau, where world famous, rich and powerful, and they controlled who got into the shows at the Salon. The Impressionists were almost entirely excluded. The academic painters gained all the benefits of the power of the French state to advance the arts, while those outside got little.
The book is inspiring and beautifully written and illustrated. It is a large book, over 500 over-sized pages, my only complaint is I wish more of the illustrations were in color. I highly recommend this book. You will learn a great deal about painting theory, history, and much about the painters themselves. They had colorful personalities and each is lovingly portrayed by Reward, with Monet, Cezanne, and Manet being standouts.
Highly recommended.
The book is lively, heavily illustrated with photographs both in color and in black and white, and it covers to period from roughly 1855 to 1905 when the art movement called - derisively at first - Impressionism was born, matured, and ultimately became accepted. It chronicles the lives and struggles of artists such as Monet, Degas, Pisarro, Renoir, Manet, Moriset, Cezanne, Cassatt, and others. A struggle it truly was. What impressed me as a student and impresses me still is how hard they worked and with so little reward or recognition. Indeed, they were met with derision, laughter, and ridicule. It took decades for modest success to be achieved.
Their opponent was the establishment in the form of the French Academy, which controlled the artistic tastes of the time and for the world. Painters who today are largely forgotten, such as Cabanel, Gerome, and Bouguereau, where world famous, rich and powerful, and they controlled who got into the shows at the Salon. The Impressionists were almost entirely excluded. The academic painters gained all the benefits of the power of the French state to advance the arts, while those outside got little.
The book is inspiring and beautifully written and illustrated. It is a large book, over 500 over-sized pages, my only complaint is I wish more of the illustrations were in color. I highly recommend this book. You will learn a great deal about painting theory, history, and much about the painters themselves. They had colorful personalities and each is lovingly portrayed by Reward, with Monet, Cezanne, and Manet being standouts.
Highly recommended.
May 30, 2016
This book provides the reader—knowledgable about art, but no expert—with a deep appreciation for the work, motivation and personalities of the Impressionists (Manet, Monet, Renoir, Degas, Morisot, Cezanne, Pissarro, etc.). It is insightful and extensively illustrated. What is more, it is readable (and gripping) as a narrative, beginning with Pissarro's arrival at the World's Fair of 1855 and ending, gradually, with the deaths of our protagonists.
I visited one museum of Impressionist art (the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, CA) while reading this book, and can attest that I was able to appreciate the art on display at a much deeper level than I would have previously. The dates of the work, the different styles, the locations all took on much greater meaning in the historical context.
I read the "revised fourth edition", which I believe is the most recent version. (Amazingly, this book is 35 years out of print). I would suggest this version to others, since I am given to understand that it has more color illustrations (82) than did prior editions. Nonetheless, most of the illustrations are still in black and white, an impediment to appreciating artists whose work was, to a large extent, a revolution in color.
I visited one museum of Impressionist art (the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, CA) while reading this book, and can attest that I was able to appreciate the art on display at a much deeper level than I would have previously. The dates of the work, the different styles, the locations all took on much greater meaning in the historical context.
I read the "revised fourth edition", which I believe is the most recent version. (Amazingly, this book is 35 years out of print). I would suggest this version to others, since I am given to understand that it has more color illustrations (82) than did prior editions. Nonetheless, most of the illustrations are still in black and white, an impediment to appreciating artists whose work was, to a large extent, a revolution in color.
September 27, 2011
This scholarly book is written in a very accessible style. The impressionists come alive and the reader begins to understand what it was like to be a painter/outcast in turn of the century Paris. This is a book I return to again and again to reread sections on the impressionists as I visit various exhibits on the various artists. I haven't read a book on art history that was more clearly written. I really recommend this book to anyone not just those with an art history appetite. The only complaint is that I always believe that artwork should be reproduced in color. A mere 82 of the 623 illustrations are in color, so read this wonderful history (more story) near your computer so you can see the artwork described more vividly.
September 19, 2013
A comprehensive and very well written book. I read it in an old edition with many black and white plates. I hope an all colour edition is available by now. Rewald covers all the artists and the Parisian art scene - it was the first time I understood how the relationships of the painters and their place in 19th century France. It will be difficult to improve on.
June 28, 2021
“What’s the big deal with Impressionism?”
This was the question I asked myself recently when I kept getting bombarded with analogies to the history (and economics) of fine art as a reference for the hyper inflated value of NFTs (non fungible tokens) that have captured the attention of the news cycles in the first half of 2021 for selling digital art pieces at obscenely high prices.
So I decided to read more about the Impressionists. If you would like to get a better idea about grand paradigmatic shifts in what is and is not considered art of value, Rewald’s rather dry telling of the rise of Impressionism will indeed do the job.
I didn’t go into this book blind. I can humblebrag my overly American stance of having been to the Musee D’Orsay twice in my life to examine some of the finest pieces referenced in this book. But I must confess, beyond an under par appreciation and knowledge of Impressionism, both my D’Orsay excursions (respectively in my teens and then my 20s), I was more impressed by the feat of engineering and restoration of an industrial revolution era Parisian train station into a world class art museum. We can safely say I have been no connoisseur.
But this book helps. What I have lacked in 19th century art history knowledge, I can make up for as a recovering English major and addicted reader surfacing an old university debate about authors - does the identity and life of the author matter in the context of a piece of literature? Or does the writing on the page stand alone for judgement? These are trick questions without concrete answers for academics who like the sound of their own voices - at least that’s my postmodernism saturated non-answer - BUT … after reading Rewald and other analyses of the Impressionists, I think I can safely say that no, the paintings do not stand alone. Impressionism is painfully ordinary outside the revolutionary context of Monet, Manet, Pissarro, Degas, Renoir, Sisley, and Cezanne’s struggle for legitimacy in both the eyes of the public and the state in their working years.
I have no doubt that any inveterate NY art critic would sneer at this, telling me, that’s the point you buffoon, and then extolling the mastery of the absence of black paint (except for Degas) and colorful opacity and stroke blending for Monet’s Impression: Sunrise - but, back to reality, I had an uncle in New England who painted just as nicely in the 1970s.
What you learn from Rewald from a 21st century reading of a 20th century historic writing about 19th century artists is that Impressionism became what hated it in the first place. The French establishment that worshipped the Italian Renaissance masters through systematic skilled copying of Raphaels in the Louvre in the 19th century, literally laughed at Manet and friends. Publicly. Brutally. 19th century trolling of the iconoclasts. But that tradition of industrial copying that the world began with Gutenberg’s press in the 15th century, only really began to hit critical momentum about the time of the impressionists, and subsequently in the copy culture media age of the 20th century, where in their old age, the surviving Impressionists like Monet were finally able to enjoy financial and critical success - ultimately each mostly abandoning the loose dogmatic rules of Impressionism they started with (rules that you learn from Rewald that Degas for example didn’t really even follow). This becomes painfully obvious to me in retrospect that girls ballet dancing in a shadowy studio visually have little in common with a Monet landscape or a Manet hooker staring at you through the 4th wall.
And that’s my point. Rewald teaches us that Impressionism as a movement is historically more about the democratization of art, art movements, their controversy, and artists themselves as a context to the actual squares of paint. Monet’s paintings have been replicated in the media as voluminously in the 20th and now 21st century as the 19th century Louvre copyists ever replicated some religious scene by Raphael. And so the fiscal value of a Monet at auction today would arguably eclipse the former correlating to mass recognition fueled by replicated simulacrum.
So we laugh or dismiss NFTs and their over inflated prices just as the French establishment did to Manet and company in the 1860s. Only history and replication will decide how painfully ordinary a Beeple is in 50 years. I would argue that if Beeple can’t sustain mass replication and controversy, what could be art will not.
I’ll end by saying I can now revisit the Musee D’Orsay a third time post-Rewald with a new respect and reverence. But I will stand close to these paint square still armed with the question, “what’s the big deal with Impressionism?” - only, I’ll be a bit smarter to the struggle these puppies had on the historic road to legendary pricelessness, and their place in the cannons of malleable critical and public opinion in modern societies.
This was the question I asked myself recently when I kept getting bombarded with analogies to the history (and economics) of fine art as a reference for the hyper inflated value of NFTs (non fungible tokens) that have captured the attention of the news cycles in the first half of 2021 for selling digital art pieces at obscenely high prices.
So I decided to read more about the Impressionists. If you would like to get a better idea about grand paradigmatic shifts in what is and is not considered art of value, Rewald’s rather dry telling of the rise of Impressionism will indeed do the job.
I didn’t go into this book blind. I can humblebrag my overly American stance of having been to the Musee D’Orsay twice in my life to examine some of the finest pieces referenced in this book. But I must confess, beyond an under par appreciation and knowledge of Impressionism, both my D’Orsay excursions (respectively in my teens and then my 20s), I was more impressed by the feat of engineering and restoration of an industrial revolution era Parisian train station into a world class art museum. We can safely say I have been no connoisseur.
But this book helps. What I have lacked in 19th century art history knowledge, I can make up for as a recovering English major and addicted reader surfacing an old university debate about authors - does the identity and life of the author matter in the context of a piece of literature? Or does the writing on the page stand alone for judgement? These are trick questions without concrete answers for academics who like the sound of their own voices - at least that’s my postmodernism saturated non-answer - BUT … after reading Rewald and other analyses of the Impressionists, I think I can safely say that no, the paintings do not stand alone. Impressionism is painfully ordinary outside the revolutionary context of Monet, Manet, Pissarro, Degas, Renoir, Sisley, and Cezanne’s struggle for legitimacy in both the eyes of the public and the state in their working years.
I have no doubt that any inveterate NY art critic would sneer at this, telling me, that’s the point you buffoon, and then extolling the mastery of the absence of black paint (except for Degas) and colorful opacity and stroke blending for Monet’s Impression: Sunrise - but, back to reality, I had an uncle in New England who painted just as nicely in the 1970s.
What you learn from Rewald from a 21st century reading of a 20th century historic writing about 19th century artists is that Impressionism became what hated it in the first place. The French establishment that worshipped the Italian Renaissance masters through systematic skilled copying of Raphaels in the Louvre in the 19th century, literally laughed at Manet and friends. Publicly. Brutally. 19th century trolling of the iconoclasts. But that tradition of industrial copying that the world began with Gutenberg’s press in the 15th century, only really began to hit critical momentum about the time of the impressionists, and subsequently in the copy culture media age of the 20th century, where in their old age, the surviving Impressionists like Monet were finally able to enjoy financial and critical success - ultimately each mostly abandoning the loose dogmatic rules of Impressionism they started with (rules that you learn from Rewald that Degas for example didn’t really even follow). This becomes painfully obvious to me in retrospect that girls ballet dancing in a shadowy studio visually have little in common with a Monet landscape or a Manet hooker staring at you through the 4th wall.
And that’s my point. Rewald teaches us that Impressionism as a movement is historically more about the democratization of art, art movements, their controversy, and artists themselves as a context to the actual squares of paint. Monet’s paintings have been replicated in the media as voluminously in the 20th and now 21st century as the 19th century Louvre copyists ever replicated some religious scene by Raphael. And so the fiscal value of a Monet at auction today would arguably eclipse the former correlating to mass recognition fueled by replicated simulacrum.
So we laugh or dismiss NFTs and their over inflated prices just as the French establishment did to Manet and company in the 1860s. Only history and replication will decide how painfully ordinary a Beeple is in 50 years. I would argue that if Beeple can’t sustain mass replication and controversy, what could be art will not.
I’ll end by saying I can now revisit the Musee D’Orsay a third time post-Rewald with a new respect and reverence. But I will stand close to these paint square still armed with the question, “what’s the big deal with Impressionism?” - only, I’ll be a bit smarter to the struggle these puppies had on the historic road to legendary pricelessness, and their place in the cannons of malleable critical and public opinion in modern societies.
September 15, 2024
Un estudio maravillosamente completo sobre el movimiento del impresionismo. Unos chicos que se conocieron en un taller y crearon una técnica inusual. Fueron agrandando su amistad así como sus horizontes siempre buscando la naturaleza, el color y la luz. Conocemos poco a poco a través de pasajes y cartas a un humilde Pissarro, un orgulloso Manet, un complicado Degas, un prolífico Monet, un alegre Renoir, un noble Bazille, un loco Cezanne, un aventurero Gauguin y un visionario Van Gogh. Biografías artísticas y vivenciales pero también psicológicas. Ese grupo, esa amistad que durará por siempre en la historia del arte. 🫶🏼
June 18, 2024
La storia dell'Impressionismo, pubblicata per la prima volta nel 1945 e scritta da John Rewald, descrive l'affascinante periodo della storia di un gruppo di pittori definiti dalla critica come "pittori dell'impressione". L'autore narra le difficili battaglie con l'arte tradizionale rappresentata dal Salon ufficiale di Parigi e le vite di artisti come Monet, Cézanne, Renoir, Degas, Gauguin e molti altri ancora. Quest'opera riguarda in particolare una descrizione della vita sociale di questi artisti, delle loro difficoltà economiche e delle controversie, più che un'analisi delle loro opere.
Da artista, valuto questo libro molto interessante e unico. Nei libri d'arte sono sempre più interessato alla storia degli artisti e al contesto culturale e sociale in cui sono vissuti, più che a una valutazione estetica e critica delle loro opere. Questo lavoro offre la possibilità di investigare le relazioni tra i vari artisti in maniera quasi narrativa. Mi affascina notevolmente capire le difficoltà economiche dei vari artisti, in particolare quelle di Monet e Gauguin, e inoltre comprendere l'evoluzione dei loro lavori rispetto al mondo in cui vivevano, nel caso degli impressionisti rispetto all'evoluzione della società borghese e del mondo moderno. Ciò nonostante, l'unica cosa che secondo me manca e che credo sia molto importante è l'analisi dell'influenza che la fotografia ebbe su questi artisti. Per il resto, per ogni artista, La storia degli impressionisti è un libro da leggere assolutamente.
Da artista, valuto questo libro molto interessante e unico. Nei libri d'arte sono sempre più interessato alla storia degli artisti e al contesto culturale e sociale in cui sono vissuti, più che a una valutazione estetica e critica delle loro opere. Questo lavoro offre la possibilità di investigare le relazioni tra i vari artisti in maniera quasi narrativa. Mi affascina notevolmente capire le difficoltà economiche dei vari artisti, in particolare quelle di Monet e Gauguin, e inoltre comprendere l'evoluzione dei loro lavori rispetto al mondo in cui vivevano, nel caso degli impressionisti rispetto all'evoluzione della società borghese e del mondo moderno. Ciò nonostante, l'unica cosa che secondo me manca e che credo sia molto importante è l'analisi dell'influenza che la fotografia ebbe su questi artisti. Per il resto, per ogni artista, La storia degli impressionisti è un libro da leggere assolutamente.
April 26, 2012
This book is very good! The author describes very well how the artists lived, their thoughs and everything that happend in the process of Impressionism. For sure it's a book to read to any academic paper of this subject.
May 5, 2011
I read this as research for my novel, My Phantom: The Memoir of Christine Daaé. More on Impressionism -- less lifestyle and more art than Herbert -- but considered THE source for the topic.
April 2, 2013
I can't imagine a more thorough, entertaining read on the period. Loved it.
January 10, 2017
Very good for research!
Read
August 26, 2021Never managed to finish (73%) enjoyed what I did read though
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews