Understanding Puvis de Chavannes (1824-1898) is crucial to reading the history of art of the late nineteenth century and the development of modernism. Internationally heralded yet sometimes scorned, much exhibited, respected and emulated, an artist's artist of pivotal importance to the generation of post-Impressionists from Seurat and Gauguin to Matisse and Picasso, Puvis' work is not readily categorized. Often associated with classicizing imagery, he was an artist of great range, originality and radically idiosyncratic invention. He executed great mural complexes, compelling easel paintings and numerous works on paper that included lyrical watercolours, pastels and fierce caricatures. Presented in two complementary volumes - a critical study of the artist's life and art and a catalogue raisonne of his painted work - this book introduces many of his works for the first time, assesses his contribution and restores him to the pantheon of modern masters.Volume I situates Puvis and his work in his time. With a wealth of new documentation, unpublished correspondence and images, Aimee Brown Price addresses the theories, forces and events that impinged on his art, as well as examining the work of his progenitors, contemporaries and followers. She contextualizes his themes, the development of his special decorative aesthetic - and its importance in establishing a new kind of imagery - and his modernized allegorical figures; and she discusses such topics as his atelier and teaching, the marketing of his work and his role in the art establishment of the 1890s.Volume II is a complete compendium of Puvis' easel paintings and mural cycles for civic buildings throughout France as well as the for Boston Public Library. Each work is analysed in terms of its genesis, distinct iconography, and style. A revised dating of the several versions of some of Puvis' best-known paintings indicates heretofore unrecognized late reprisals and offers a new index to the evolution of his style.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Best known for Arcadian mural paintings peopled by somnambulist figures inhabiting a mysterious, classicized landscape, French artist Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (1824-98) had a liberating influence on Gauguin, Seurat, Rodin, Denis and Picasso. This valuable, beautiful catalog of a retrospective at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam allows one to understand why Puvis's impact was so great. Though his murals are notably absent from the exhibit, this volume, featuring 98 color and 102 black-and-white plates, highlights his brooding, sensitive portraits, myth-laden fantasies, delicate watercolors, powerful religious dramas, wry caricatures, nude sketches, allegories and other easel paintings that evoke a sense of solitude, longing and alienation. Guest curator Price ably delineates the development of Puvis's mural esthetic, detects repercussions of the Franco-Prussian War and the Paris Commune in his work, and tracks his pictorial idiom to classical, Byzantine and Pre-Raphaelite sources.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Revered during his lifetime, the French mural painter Puvis de Chavannes (1824-98) has been neglected since his death. His monumental murals and paintings are distinguished for their "classicizing imagery"-pale-toned, allegorical personages from ancient times set in bucolic, flattened landscapes. Published in conjunction with a recent retrospective exhibition at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, this monograph features over 140 of Puvis's paintings and drawings. Exquisite figure paintings, dramatic biblical compositions, and witty caricatures should spark new interest in this complex artist. Price, an authority on Puvis and organizer of the exhibition, accompanies each illustration with detailed text, provenance, and citations. Essays contributed by two noted art historians and a chronology complete the volume. Highly recommended for all art history collections.
Joan Levin, MLS, Chicago
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Joan Levin, MLS, Chicago
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Only for serious scholars, disappointing as an art book,
By Parkermann347 (U.S.) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Pierre Puvis de Chavannes Set (Hardcover)
I knew within 10 minutes of opening this set, that hoping for an incredible coffee table sized art book for Chavannes was a mistake. For the cost, I imagined there would be plenty of full color images. As I flipped through in growing annoyance, I saw that 80% of the pictures are in black and white. Out of over 700 pages across 2 volumes, the vast majority is text and black and white images. I figured in the year 2010 the black and white art book was a thing of the past.
It is 2 volume set, beautifully packaged in a glossy box. But the first volume is supposed to be an overview of the artist, and of its nearly 300 pages, 130 are the appendix and notes. 90% is just text and a few color images. Not much. The 2nd volume is the catalog raisonne of most of his works and this was mostly black and white with page after page of text. I can go on fliker dot com and see people's vacation pics from Europe to see what is included in these 2 books. The few color images are photos of various walls/ apses that have Chavannes' paintings on them. I am very disappointed. Apparently only a serious scholar would want or need an art book that has very little art in color and is mostly scholarly research.
0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Don't miss this wonderful book!,
This review is from: Pierre Puvis de Chavannes Set (Hardcover)
This is undoubtedly the definitive book about this great and not yet fully appreciated artist. Art historian Aimee Brown Price has devoted much of her stellar career to this, her favorite painter and his works. This book is the culmination of her years of study of and devotion to his genius and is not to be missed!
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