The Art of Impressionism: Painting Technique and the Making of Modernity [Hardcover]

Ms. Anthea Callen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 11, 2000

This magnificent book is the first full-scale exploration of Impressionist technique. Focusing on the easel-painted work of Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, Cézanne, Cassatt, Morisot, Caillebotte, Sisley, and Degas in the period before 1900, it places their methods and materials in a historical perspective and evaluates their origins, novelty, and meanings within the visual formation of urban modernity.

Drawing on scientific studies of pigments and materials, artists’ treatises, colormens’ archives, and contemporary and modern accounts, Anthea Callen demonstrates how raw materials and paintings are profoundly interdependent. She analyzes the material constituents of oil painting and the complex processes of “making” entailed in all aspects of artistic production, discussing in particular oil painting methods for landscapists and the impact of plein air light on figure painting, studio practice, and display. Insisting that the meanings of paintings are constituted by and within the cultural matrices that produced them, Callen argues that the real “modernity” of the Impressionist enterprise lies in the painters’ material practices. Bold brushwork, unpolished, sketchy surfaces, and bright, “primitive” colors were combined with their subject matter—the effects of light, the individual sensation made visible—to establish the modern as visual.

Editorial Reviews

From the Inside Flap

This magnificent book is the first full-scale exploration of Impressionist technique. Focusing on the easel-painted work of Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, Cézanne, Cassatt, Morisot, Caillebotte, Sisley, and Degas in the period before 1900, it places their methods and materials in a historical perspective and evaluates their origins, novelty, and meanings within the visual formation of urban modernity.Drawing on scientific studies of pigments and materials, artists' treatises, colormens' archives, and contemporary and modern accounts, Anthea Callen demonstrates how raw materials and paintings are profoundly interdependent. She analyzes the material constituents of oil painting and the complex processes of "making" entailed in all aspects of artistic production, discussing in particular oil painting methods for landscapists and the impact of plein air light on figure painting, studio practice, and display. Insisting that the meanings of paintings are constituted by and within the cultural matrices that produced them, Callen argues that the real "modernity" of the Impres- sionist enterprise lies in the painters' material practices. Bold brushwork, unpolished, sketchy surfaces, and bright, "primitive" colors were combined with their subject matter-the effects of light, the individual sensation made visible-to establish the modern as visual.

About the Author

Anthea Callen, professor-elect in the department of the history of art, University of Nottingham, was formerly research professor in the history of art, De Montfort University, Leicester. She is also the author of The Spectacular Body: Science, Method, and Meaning in the Work of Degas, published by Yale University Press.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press (December 11, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300084021
• ISBN-13: 978-0300084023
• Product Dimensions: 13 x 9.9 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,586,801 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #97 in Books > Arts & Photography > Schools, Periods & Styles > Impressionism

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful Research and Insight!, May 12, 2008

By 

Jack Hoyer (Los Angeles, CA, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Art of Impressionism: Painting Technique and the Making of Modernity (Hardcover)

Anthea Callen trained as a painter. She writes with a painter's insight. She also has a brilliant mind. The book is thoroughly researched. It is written with more emphasis on the materials and physical techniques of the Impressionists than on sociological or philosophical analysis. When she does go into those areas she does so with restraint and great intelligence. I give this book the highest recommendation particularly as a book for painters or for those interested in the intricacies of painting.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Impressive but Impractical, July 21, 2010

By 

Joseph Reader (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Art of Impressionism: Painting Technique and the Making of Modernity (Hardcover)

This is a very good book (for what it is), but it is quite a difficult read, with much content that has little practical value for most of us. It is a scholarly (i.e., academic) history of opinions and processes that informed Impressionist painting. It is undeniably impressive in its scholarship, its substantive weight, and its physical dimensions--this is a big book having large oversize pages full of single-spaced small print. Its research and detail are, I think, remarkable. Indeed it presents detail upon detail upon technical detail. It is both exhaustive and exhausting. It thoroughly covers many topics that I simply have no need or desire to know about. This is a book for art-history professors.

I had wanted to see this book for two reasons: I wanted to learn to paint like the Impressionists, and I hoped to see their paintings in superior reproductions. In each case, I was disappointed.

The quality of the reproductions is very good (more than adequate to illustrate the text's points), but NOT outstanding. And this definitely is not a how-to-paint lesson manual. If, from this book, you ever learn to paint like the Masters, it will only be indirectly, from inference rather than from clear instruction. And you will need to dig through some fairly thick and sometimes diffuse language to find information you might consider useful. In fact, many of the opinions and processes discussed in the book are contradictory--and (to her credit) the author does not offer her opinion about which ways and opinions were best.

Believe it or not, the foregoing is not meant to disparage the book per se, because it is excellent, FOR WHAT IT IS (and on those particular terms it deserves 4 stars). I have only meant to tell prospective buyers just what it is. This book was not very helpful to me, and I think it would not be very useful to most readers, including most painters and art aficionados.

I'm glad the book exists--it is a genuine scholarly achievement--and if someone were to give it to me as a gift, I'd gratefully recieve it (and I'd probably look at it once in a while). But I would not pay much to buy it. (Borrow it from a public library before deciding to buy.)