Masterpieces of European Painting, 1800–1920, in The Metropolitan Museum of Art

Description

This lavishly illustrated volume features a broad selection of the Museum's greatest European paintings from 1800 to 1920. It includes images of works by artists representing nine different countries, but the focus is on Impressionist and Post-Impressionist French painting, of which the Museum possesses the most comprehensive collection outside of France. The volume opens with an essay by Gary Tinterow, longtime curator of the nineteenth- and early twentieth- century European paintings at the Museum, describing the labor of love involved in forming the extensive collection and creating the most optimal gallery spaces in which to showcase it. Each of the 193 paintings in the collection is represented by one sumptuous colorplate after another, and accompanied by illuminating commentary written by the scholars who know the work best. Portraits by Ingres, landscapes by Corot, examples of both these genres by the Realist Courbet, and pictures by the Barbizon painters Millet and Daubigny show the developments in early nineteenth century art and form a precursor to the works of the Impressionists. Paintings by the luminaries of that movement—Manet, Monet, Renoir, Degas, Pissarro, and Sisley—create the brilliant centerpiece of the book, and they in turn foreshadow the revolutionary visions of the Post-Impressionists Gauguin and Van Gogh, the Nabi painters Bonnard and Vuillard, modern master Matisse, and early Picasso.

344 pages, 409 illustrations (202 in full color). 9'' x 12''. Paper or Hardcover; clothbound, with jacket.

• 344 pages
• 409 illustrations (202 in full color)
• 9'' x 12''
• PaperHardcover
• Clothbound, with jacket