Customer Reviews

Giovanni Boldini in Impressionist Paris (Sterling & Francine Clark Art Institute)

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"Giovanni Boldini in Impressionist Paris" is currently on exhibit at the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, MA. The Institute has the largest collection of works by the artist outside of Europe. The show catalog is 232 pages of nicely printed illustrations and text on the 30 (more or less) years that Italian artist Boldini spent in Paris, and in particular, his interaction with the Impressionist movement that flowered and waned during that period.

Boldini is an interesting figure as his painting covered a wide spectrum of subjects and styles. There are paintings that are close Sargent at times and Degas at others. He made a living out of portrait painting, especially of society women, and some of this work presages the early 20th Century pin-up art of Vargas and others (in my opinion). On the other hand, his drawings and paintings of people and animals (mostly horses) in poses of action ("Modern Life" and "Night Life" Chapters in this book) verge on the brilliant in their perception and highly skilled renderings. For those few works alone, this book might be worth acquiring for an art library.

I was excited when this book was published. I have always liked Boldini's work particularly his "society portraits". This book has a lot of his landscapes and other works that are great. But I was hoping for a book that had more of his portrait work. That being said, this is still a good book with a nice cross section of Boldini's work. However there are many very small pictures of Boldini's paintings. I do not like it when an art book has small pictures floating in the middle of a white page. There are also several pencil sketches / studies for paintings throughout this book. I would have rather had more paintings and no sketches at all. I didn't feel that these sketches did anything more than take up space and were unnecessary. This is a good, but not great book. A little disappointing for the money.

I never thought I would find such a beautiful book about Boldini, who went from being extremely famous (almost as famous as John Singer Sargent) to almost unkonwn today. I amso happy to have found this beautifully produced book of is work, which, in my opinion, should never be relegated to obscurity.

Would have liked to have seen more of his dramatic portraits of ladies in high society.