Cezanne (Masters of Art Series) [Hardcover]

Meyer Schapiro (Author)

Book Description

Series: Masters of Art | Publication Date: March 15, 1988

Beautiful color reproductions and their analysis trace the evolving style of this creative French painter.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 128 pages
• Publisher: Harry N. Abrams (March 15, 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0810910438
• ISBN-13: 978-0810910430
• Product Dimensions: 12.1 x 9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #172,612 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #30 in Books > Arts & Photography > Schools, Periods & Styles > Post-Impressionism

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

100 of 104 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Learning to Look, December 7, 1999

By 

Lionel J Plummer (Houston, Texas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cezanne (Masters of Art Series) (Hardcover)

As an art student Paul Cezanne became the paragon upon which I measured all other subsequent painters. The writer that taught me to see him as the North Star in that vast, swirling sky of artists was Meyer Schapiro. Having read the above book literally a dozen or more times I have found that it is an inexhaustible treasure. Mr. Schapiro's insights are both scholarly and poetic. He above all seems to understand that Cezanne, while instrumental as a precursor to cubism, was first and foremost a great individual artist. Going to the Cezanne retrospective in Philadelphia several years ago I remember the first thing that came to my mind was how right Mr. Schapiro had been to avoid all the fussy and downright foolish connections that other critics are constantly making between Cezanne and modern art. What Mr. Schapiro concentrates on rather is Cézannes paintings and not his influence - this is most refreshing. He above all others I have read seems to have an uncanny understanding of Cezanne as both a man and an artist. He writes that Cézanne's; "...detached contemplation of his subjects arises from a passionate aspiring nature that seeks to master its own impulses through an objective attitude to things." I can only think that this must be true of Mr. Schapiro also. Each sentence is laid down with the care that Cezanne put into laying down each stroke of paint and as such his writing possesses a gravity that I have never found in another critic's work with the exception of Roger Fry. The beginning of the book provides a comprehensive overview of Cézanne's work and a brief outline of his life but the final 3/4 quarters of the book is structured as follows: superb color reproduction on the right hand page and a few paragraphs of commentary on the left page. These enables one to simply open it at any given time, find a desirable painting and read the commentary directly next to it. Structure in this way, the book became for me a source to meditate upon the good in art when I was surrounded by the confusion of trying to find myself among other young artists. Not being a scholar I found this book to be accessible and enriching. Mr. Schapiro writes with such sincere warmth and wisdom that when I heard of his death a few years ago I was saddened as if I had lost a friend and mentor. I hope this wonderful book brings as much joy and inspiration to you as it has for me.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "The father of us all" (Picasso on Cézanne), April 25, 2011

By 

Claude Reich (Florianopolis, Brazil and Paris, France) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Cezanne (Paperback)

This is a gem of a book, with an insightful, sometimes poetic, always profound text, which analyses almost every major painting by Paul Cézanne. The illustrations are numerous and almost all in color. Now then, why 4 stars instead of 5? First because the current owners of the works are no longer the ones indicated in the book, which has not been updated (many paintings listed in private collections are nowadays in museums) and second because the quality of the illustrations leaves a lot to be desired, most of the works appearing flattened out by the rather mediocre printing process (the book was first published in 1952 and the new edition could have done a better job in this respect). Also, the famous painting "Madame Cézanne in a red Armchair", marvelously described by Rilke in his letters to his wife, is inexplicably missing from Schapiro's selection.

Yet, those few notable drawbacks should not keep Cézanne's lovers from appreciating this great study of the father of modern art.

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars learned art history from schapiro while writing about him, June 8, 2010

By 

Helen Epstein "helen epstein" (massachusetts) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cezanne (Paperback)

This book, like almost all of Schapiro's writing is a tool in learning how to see. I wrote about Schapiro as a journalist for ARTnews in the early 1980s and the six months I spent with him was a customized course in art history. Thanks to electronic publishing Meyer Schapiro: Portrait of an Art Historian is finally available on Kindle .