The Private Lives of the Impressionists [Hardcover]

Sue Roe (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 31, 2006

Manet, Monet, Pissarro, Cézanne, Renoir, Degas, Sisley, Berthe Morisot and Mary Cassatt. Though they were often ridiculed or ignored by their contemporaries, today astonishing sums are paid for the works of these artists, whose paintings are celebrated for their ability to capture the moment, not only in the fleeting lights of a landscape but in scenes of daily life. Their dazzling pictures are familiar—but how well does the world know the Impressionists as people? The Private Lives of the Impressionists tells their story. It is the first book to offer an intimate and lively biography of the world's most popular group of artists.

In a vivid and moving narrative, biographer Sue Roe shows the Impressionists in the studios of Paris, rural lanes of Montmartre and rowdy riverside bars as Paris underwent Baron Haussmann's spectacular transformation. For more than twenty years they lived and worked together as a group, struggling to rebuild their lives after the Franco-Prussian War and supporting one another through shocked public reactions to unfamiliar canvases depicting laundresses, dancers, spring blossoms and boating scenes.

This intimate, colorful, superbly researched account takes us into their homes and studios, and describes their unconventional, volatile and precarious lives, as well as the stories behind the paintings.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

From Monet and Pissarro's first meeting in Paris in 1860 to art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel's influential 1886 Impressionist exhibition in New York City, the group known as the Impressionists—Manet, Monet, Pissarro, Cézanne, Renoir, Degas, Sisley, Morisot and Cassatt—struggled to build their reputations, support themselves financially and create meaningful personal lives. In this meticulously researched and vividly written book, British writer Roe (Gwen John) argues that their drive for success was the strongest unifying factor among this diverse group of artists, including the antisocial, celibate Degas, the socialist Pissarro and the chronically depressed Sisley, who resented the Impressionists' meager public appreciation until the very end of his life. Roe's nuanced portraits of these artists include personal details both small—the American Cassatt's booming voice and "atrocious" French accent—and significant—Manet's illegitimate son and his upper-middle-class family's elaborate efforts to conceal the child's existence. The result is a comprehensive and revealing group portrait, superbly contextualized within the period's volatile political, socioeconomic and artistic shifts. Roe's book will be of great interest to both art and social historians as well as to the general reader. 16 pages of color illus., b&w illus; 1 map. (Nov.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* As a grand urban-renewal project engineered by Baron Hausmann transformed Paris under Napoleon III, a group of independent, tenacious, and ambitious painters brought equally radical change to the realm of art. Roe constructs a penetrating group portrait of the revolutionary artists dubbed the impressionists for their atmospheric landscapes and forthright depictions of everyday life. Here, masterfully set against a panoramic rendering of their turbulent times, are Manet, Pissarro, Degas, Monet, Renoir, Cezanne, Sisley, Morisot, and Cassatt, each incisively defined as an individual and in terms of their complex interactions as they devoted themselves to paintings that met only with derision. The entwined stories Roe tells about these disciples of light, color, atmosphere, and commonplace beauty are fascinating and heartbreaking. Roe writes entrancingly of artistic bliss, rowdy cafe life, profound friendships, and transcendent love. But most of the impressionists endured not only contempt but also poverty, familial conflicts, war, and tragedy. Roe's scintillatingly detailed and empathic chronicle of the on-the-edge lives of these paradigm-altering artists will deepen appreciation for the emotional depths of the impressionists' indelible paintings. And for readers interested in learning more about them, see the adjacent Read-alikes column. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Harper (October 31, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060545585
• ISBN-13: 978-0060545581
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (28 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #336,748 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

46 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Charming Overview of the Impressionists, January 7, 2007

By 

David B Richman (Mesilla Park, NM USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Private Lives of the Impressionists (Hardcover)

One common lack in the multitude of books on the French Impressionist painters is that most books concentrate on the individual artists, or at least on one artist at a time, and do little to connect the artists in the context of their private lives. A few concentrate on correspondence between artists, but don't draw it all together. There have been some notable exceptions (such as Rewald's almost encyclopedic "The History of Impressionism"), but I think that for a relatively short intimate and interconnected history of the Impressionists Sue Roe's "The Private lives of the Impressionists" stands out. I was literally caught up in the story from the start (even though I have read several other versions) and learned a great deal about who knew who when and how various painters influenced others in the movement. Here Manet grumbles about his confusion with a new painter- Monet. Cezanne wonders in an out of the group, always apparently angry and paranoid. Monet is chased by creditors and has difficulties with his parents over his mistress, a problem also for several other male Impressionists. Berthe Marisot is alternately wooed and rejected by Manet (despite his own commitments). Pissarro extols his socialist ideas and various important painters- Degas, Bazille, Courbet, Caillebotte, Cassatt, Renoir, Sisley, Manet, Monet, Pissarro, Marisot, Cezanne and others work together, get angry with each other, fight for recognition and daily bread, and have romances (or not in the case of Bazille). Indeed we see them as real people, not geniuses, with real problems.

The Impressionists made up a varied lot, who's main bond was painting, but who ran from rich to poor, socialist to conservative, and shy to outrageous. However, they completely changed Western art during their lives and difficulties, including the numerous rejections by the established art community. In addition most had to each deal in their own way with the deadly Franco-Prussian War and resultant revolt of the Communards.

If you want to read the unvarnished overview of the artists who altered the history of art in France during the last half of the Nineteenth Century, without having it encyclopedic in size, this would be it!

66 of 70 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars How one of the great movements of Art History came into being, October 31, 2006

By 

Shalom Freedman "Shalom Freedman" (Jerusalem,Israel) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Private Lives of the Impressionists (Hardcover)

This is the story of one of the great movements in Art History, French Impressionism. It does not however focus on the Art itself, but rather on the lives of the artists, on their relations to each other, on the story of the time and world in which they lived. It tells a story of a great deal of rejection at home where the Impressionists work was frequently jeered, and concludes with the tale of the immense success the great agent and promoter Rurand- Duel had in New York in his exhibition of 1880 a success which truly put the Impressionists on the road to success. In the twenty odd years from 1860 roughly to 1880 in which Manet, Pisarro, Monet, Renoir, Sisley, Bazille, Cezanne, Degas, Morisot, Cassatt, truly create Impressionism most of this group could not make a living from their painting.
One of the most surprising and moving features of this story is how these painters tried to help each other, were very often true friends to one another. Here the model and example was Pisarro whose kindness and generosity seemed to come natural.
A number of the Impressionists had for a long time their parents as principal patrons. And this book traces the often complicated family relationships involved .Also the love - relationships, or lack of love relationships in the lives of the artist are tastefully recorded.
The most moving chapter of the book tells of what finally happened to each of the artists after they grew apart from each other.
To my mind the major failing of the work is that it does not really give a sense of the painting, nor show how each artist developed his own unique way of seeing the world.

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars These Guys Could Paint, December 15, 2006

By 

Uitlander (Upstate New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Private Lives of the Impressionists (Hardcover)

I read this book because I have recently been viewing alot of Impressionistic art and I thought I needed some stories about the artists to make their work more memorable. The title made me think I was going to read alot of gossip and scandal, but after 100 years their tales hardly seem that flagrant. The major themes of their private lives seems to have been hard work, disappointment and penury. (Caillebotte and Cassett were the exceptions, as they were from wealthy families.) The author's style most resembles a professional biographer- not a gossip columnist. However, I did get a feeling for the personalities of some of the major Impressionists. Their relationships with each other are especially well recorded because they all knew one another and sometimes worked together.

If you are unfamiliar with this art, I would not recommend the book. The reproductions are small and few. And, there is no prose capable of capturing the beauty of Impressionism. However, Roe's book is a useful adjunct to an art centered study of the period.

It is satisfying to note that Impressionism continues to grow in the estimation of both critics and the public. It was the first French art to combine pedestrian life with a nebulous , colorful technique. Viewed from this century, it has the added attraction of being the last period wherein subject matter was as important as style and whose artists demonstrated verifiable talent. Ultimately, one's understanding of Impressionism can only proceed so far. To wit: on the day Renoir died, he reluctantly yielded his brush saying, "I think I am beginning to learn something about it."