From Library Journal
Accompanying an exhibition at The Art Institute of Chicago and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, this attractive catalog is the first study to focus on the decorative painting of French artists Pierre Bonnard, Edouard Vuillard, Maurice Denis, and Ker Xavier Roussel, members of the Nabis in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Curator Groom chronicles the formal development of each artist's style as well as the involvement of patrons who commissioned murals and screens for their homes. In his essay, scholar Nicholas Watkins demonstrates how the four artists applied the aesthetic principles of the mural to all types of painting, thus subverting the academic hierarchy of the fine and decorative arts. Drawing parallels with William Morris's Arts and Crafts movement and acknowledging the influences of both Japanese art and the 18th-century French rococo style, Watkins traces the absorption of these artists' abstracted decorative style into early 20th-century modernism and post-World War II avant-garde painting. With beautiful illustrations and a thoughtful text, this book is recommended for all libraries with art collections. Sandra Rothenberg, Framingham State Coll. Lib., MA
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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"Well produced. . . . highly recommended." --
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