Impressionists On The Water

"Published...on the occasion of the exhibition Impressionists on the Water on view at the Legion of Honor Museum, San Francisco, from June 1 to October 6, 2013 and at the Peabody Essex Museum, Salem Massachusetts, from November 9, 2013 to February 9, 2014."--Colophon.

In this innovative approach to Impressionism and its methods, Jonathan Stephenson's instruction enables amateurs the world over to paint like the Impressionists. Vibrantly illustrated in colour throughout, both with well-known works of art and step-by-step examples, the book shows how the masters achieved their diverse effects and how their ideas and styles can be adapted to today's tastes. Sections on the artists provide fascinating insights into individual techniques: learn how Monet produced his oil colour sketches, or how Sisley created his atmospheric landscapes. With an introduction providing the historical background to Impressionism, and a comprehensive section on artists' materials, this is a highly practical book that will appeal both to beginners and more experienced artists, as well as to the many thousands of of people inspired by the brilliance and beauty of Impressionist painting.

Sixty color-ready illustrations of timeless treasures by Impressionist and Post-Impressionist masters include works by Cassatt, Cézanne, Degas, Gauguin, van Gogh, Manet, Monet, Renoir, Sargent, Seurat, Toulouse-Lautrec, and others.

Acclaimed historian Ross King paints the most nuanced, riveting and humane portrait yet of Claude Monet, arguably the most famous artist of the 20th century. We have all seen—live, in photographs, on postcards—some of Claude Monet's legendary water lily paintings. They are in museums all over the world, and are among the most admired paintings of our time. Yet nobody knows the extraordinarily dramatic story behind their creation. Telling that story is the brilliant historian, Ross King—and in the process, he presents a compelling and original portrait of perhaps the most beloved artist in history. As World War I exploded within hearing distance of his house at Giverny, Monet was facing his own personal crucible. In 1911, his adored wife, Alice, had died, plunging him into deep mourning at age 71. A year later he began going blind. Then, his eldest son, Jean, fell ill and died of syphilis, and his other son was sent to the front to fight for France. Within months, a violent storm destroyed much of the garden that had been his inspiration for some 20 years. At the same time, his reputation was under attack, as a new generation of artists, led by Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse, were dazzling the art world and expressing disgust with Impressionism. Against all this, fighting his own self-doubt, depression and age, Monet found the wherewithal to construct a massive new studio, 70 feet long and 50 feet high, to accommodate the gigantic canvases that would, he hoped, revive him. Using letters, memoirs and other sources not employed by other biographers, and focusing on this remarkable period in the artist's life, Ross King reveals a more complex, more human, more intimate Claude Monet than has ever been portrayed, and firmly places his water lily project among the greatest achievements in the history of art.

Through a selection of over 140 works, this catalog offers a first approach to Paul Signac's color harmonies along with an invitation to travel. Paul Signac's career as a painter in love with color was just as intense as it was varied. Starting from one of the largest private collections of the artist's works, this publication illustrates his creative journey from his early impressionist paintings until his final watercolors from the Ports de France series, also including the heroic years of neo-impressionism, the splendor of Saint-Tropez, and the shimmering images of Venice, Rotterdam, and Constantinople. The virtuosity of the neo-impressionist master is also reflected in the diverse techniques he used: the ardor of Signac's impressionist debut is set off against the limpid polychromies of the divisionist paintings, the daring Japonisme of his watercolors contrasts with the freedom of the sheets painted en plein air, while his large Indian ink studies reveal the secrets of calm compositions, contemplated at length in his studio.

In the 1870s, Argenteuil, located on the outskirts of Paris, was still unmarred by urban industrialization. This book explores the responses to Argenteuil of six influential painters in more than 50 of their works. Catalogue for an upcoming exhibition at the National Gallery in Washington, D.C. 105 illustrations, 70 in color.