Customer Reviews

Impressionism (Midi Series)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I have just started painting and love the Impressionists but did not have any books explaining the era and the painters. My best friend is an award winning artist and she recommended these books as they were spoken about in her artists group. The two book set is beautifully done and chocked full of information and paintings. A true delight!

This is an excellent, excellent review of the movement.

The color plates are second to none, but its overall greatest strength is the writing, which puts Impressionism in historical context. The reader will come to understand why it continues to be such an important movement today.

I read all the reviews of the book and I really appreciate the quality of the book in terms of writing and in terms of images, but all these reviews are about the previous version of the book.

But this new edition in the 25th anniversary is smaller than the other and the text size is too small that is very difficult to read the book.

May be the price and the weight of this book is better in some cases but you have to know that if you're looking for an easy reading may be the other edition could be better.

I've been always a lover of French Impressionist art. When I saw this lavishly illustrated and extremely detailed written book at my local store two years ago, I had to buy it. It has about a thousand full color reproductions of paintings from both well known as well as from loads of rarely published artists. There are hundreds of publications about French Impressionism but this work is unique because it also deals with art of all the major European countries and North America during the Impressionist period. The book is divided into two sections. The first part of the book deals with the French Impressionist and Post Impressionist movements that most of us are familiar with. The first chapter of the book deals with earlier European artists such as Gustave Courbet, Camille Corot, and William Turner who influenced the work of the Impressionists. Then the book goes into great detail about the lives, artistic practices, and work of the most well known artists including Claude Monet, Edouard Manet, Camille Pissarro, Auguste Renoir, Edgar Degas, Paul Gauguin, Paul Cezanne, Georges Seurat, and Vincent van Gogh. However, I was most intrigued with the loads of reproductions of many rarely known French painters such as Eva Gonzales, Jean Louis Forain, Jean Francois Rafaelli, and Lucien Pisarro(Camille's son). I never knew about most of these artists until I read the book The second half of the book deals with paintings and artists from other European countries and American Impressionism. This was my favorite part of the book because I learned about other artistic movements and a lot of other artists(the marjority are only known in their home country). Examples include the German Max Liebermann, the Spanish painter Joachim Sorolla, the Hague School painters of the Netherlands, and the Macchiolli group of Italian artists(in the book you'll learn the Macchiolli movement actually began before French Impressionism). The last chapter of the book deals with Impressionist art in North America. In this section you'll learn about artists such as Mary Cassatt, John Singer Sargent, William Merritt Chase, Childe Hassam, and the Group of Ten painters as well as some Canadian artists. As you read through the book you'll learn that many of these non French artists were trained in France. At the end of the book there is an appendix with mini biographies of the over two hundred artists mentioned with lists of illustrations. If you want a great reference work about this important art movement buy this book. You'll learn something new every time you flip through it.

I received this book as my Birthday gift and ever since, I have found it to be indispensable, the reading is clear, and the author even included some interpretations of the drawings. If you like Anne Holander, Vision of Fabric, then you should consider getting this as well. Not only do I appreciate the text, I end up imitating the paintings illustrated in the book.
Get it!

In most ways this is a great set of books at a great price! Excellent text by a worthwhile and authoritative author. Plates are good quality - good detail, good color. Unfortunately the plates seem to be scattered randomly throughout the books, and it takes a lot of effort and page flipping to find the plate being referenced by the text.

Part of the Taschen series of art books, this book is a wonderful compilation of the impressionist movement. Short of having lived the era, this is as close as you will get to the period. Greatly recommended

I saw this book for sale at the Orsay in Paris for 40 Euro.
This price is actually better than that! You will be pleased for hours with this pair of Superb work

This book is very good! A very nice print and wonderful pictures. Quality is a need in art books and then this is an important matter to buy some. The book go through many aspects of the impressionism movement and is easy to read, I'm not an art expert and find it good to understand.

This book feature high quality photos and interesting text. It also covers impressionism outside of France.