Customer Reviews

American Impressionists: Painters of Light and the Modern Landscape

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The book is filled with works not in other books on the subject (or at least books I'm familiar with). I especially love the details of the pictures. They beautifully depict the brushwork and texture of the works. The book contains a really nice selection of paintings. It also includes biographical information about the artists without too much digging into the meaning of their work. Beautiful book! Amazon sent an email about this book, and I checked it out. Glad I did! I like an art book with more art (after all that's what it's about)...

I discovered American Impressionism rather late in life, having believed previously that all the Impressionist painters were European. Then I encountered the work of such superb American painters as Childe Hassam, William Merritt Chase, and Frank Weston Benson, to name but a few, and looked around eagerly for books about their lives and work. This volume, American Impressionists: Painters of Light and the Modern Landscape, is now one of my treasures. An excellent introduction by William H. Gerdts on the history of American Impressionism is followed by short essays on the artists and their work, and its place in the important and influential art of their day, written by Susan Behrends Frank. For those already familiar with this background, it might be basic information, but it is well-written and authoritative information that provides an outstanding opening for the second half of the book: the full-color plates.

This has to be one of the best, most brilliant collections of paintings gathered into one book. Reproduction of color and detail is flawless, and the gallery features both the paintings and details from selected works which beautifully educate the reader on each artist's personal style. Size of the paintings is generous--some are two-page spreads, and others, with few exceptions, fill the page. I was thrilled with this, as my eyesight is not as sharp as it was. Anyone learning about American Impressionism for the first time could not do better than to purchase this title and enjoy poring over its pages again and again.