Modernity and Modernism: French Painting in the Nineteenth Century (Open University - Modern Art Practices & Debates)

Description

This first volume in the series focuses on aspects of Realism, Impressionism, and Post-Impressionism in Paris between 1848 and 1900. Discussing works by Courbet, Manet, Monet, Pissarro, Cezanne, Morisot, and other great painters of the period, the authors demonstrate how some historians view this art as representative of the social, historical, and economic circumstances in which it was produced, how the painterly effects of the art are evaluated, and how a feminist perspective can help to explain art works and change our perception of them. Cover CONTENTS PREFACE INTRODUCTION What is modern? Invisible pictures: visual representation and language The modern in formation The spectator The artist The modern in fragments After modernity? References CHAPTER 1 MODERN PRACTICES OF ART AND MODERNITY Introduction: art as a social practice Bohemia and the avant-garde The heroism of modern life Art practice and politics in the nineteenth-century art world The Academy and the Salon Eclecticism and juste milieu painting Courbet: representing the country to the town Realism and social criticism Modernity, realism and the history of art: Manet's Old Musician The experience of modernity The Old Musician The Old Musician and the modernization of Paris The spectacle of modernization The problem of official tolerance: The Painter's Studio and View of the International Exhibition of 1867 The ideology of individualism and the art market Modernization: spectacle and irony Monet's representation of Argenteuil Modernity: the social and the aesthetic References CHAPTER 2 IMPRESSIONISM, MODERNISM AND ORIGINALITY Introduction Impression and Impressionism Impressionism and art history 'Significant form' Depth, flatness and self-criticism Modernism and its priorities Questions to the Modernist Monet at La Grenouillère Seeing the modern Pissarro Effect and sensation Painting and human content Cézanne Cézanne's Dejeuner sur l'herbe The Grounds of the Château Noir Monet's Nymphéas References CHAPTER 3 GENDER AND REPRESENTATION Introduction Renoir's La Loge Artists The status of women artists Questions of quality Modem representations of the artist Eva Gonzales Berthe Morisot Painting as a woman The opera as a site of modernity Mary Cassatt Images of motherhood Modernity and the domestic sphere The historical viewer Critical reception of women's art 'Scientific' attitudes to women Impressionism as a 'feminine' art References Index