From Library Journal
This catalog for a monumental show at the Palazzo Grassi in Venice focuses on the importance of Puvis de Chavannes in the development of modern sensibilities by showing his works alongside those of many artists from Europe and North America who were influenced by him. In the opening essay, Lemoine (director, Musee D'Orsay) argues for Puvis's rightful place as the father of modern painting. Nineteen additional essays by important scholars discuss Puvis's murals and easel paintings, located in many major public spaces in France. Respected by contemporaries Degas and Rodin, Puvis influenced younger artists from C zanne and Gauguin to Matisse and Picasso, as well as the Pre-Raphaelites, the Nabis, and other modern movements in many countries. The catalog of works contains more than 500 color illustrations of the massive amount of art assembled for the show, much of it from the Musee D'Orsay. A final important feature includes biographies of every artist in the show. Puvis is still best described by famed art critic Bernard Berenson in his 1897 essay on space composition in della Francesca and Perugino. Readers may also want to peruse Jennifer Laurie Shaw's Dream States: Puvis de Chavannes, Modernism and the Fantasy of France and Aimee Brown-Price's Pierre Puvis de Chavannes. But the publication of this book is itself a truly exciting event, and no library in the 21st century with a Western art book collection is complete without it.Ellen Bates, New York Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Book Description
This catalogue of the major exhibition at the Palazzo Grassi in Venice presents a groundbreaking interpretatioin of the birth of modern art. Serge Lemoine, curator of the exhibition and director of the Musée d'Orsay, proposes that "modern art does not descend, as is commonly thought, from Manet and Impressionism, but from . . . the French painter Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (1824-1898)." The author of monumental mural decorations in such civic buildings as the museums of Amiens, Lyons, Rouen, the Panthéon and the Sorbonne, Puvis de Chavannes had a remarkable influence on his contemporaries in France and abroad, including Seurat, Gauguin and Cézanne, as well as on later generations of artists. Equally indebted to Puvis de Chavannes are the great European symbolist painters, from Munch to Hodler. However, perhaps his most prestigious modern acolytes were Picasso and Matisse, who remained loyal to him all their lives.

This volume features detailed scholarly contributions analyzing Puvis de Chavannes's work and all his affiliations, as well as offering rich critical and documentary data on his numerous and notable disciples. Accompanied by over five hundred illustrations, this volume is a superb evocation of a period of great artistic ferment and outstanding creativity.

A landmark study, Toward Modern Art makes the bold argument that modern art does not descend, as is commonly described, from Manet and Impressionism, but rather from the unlikely figure of French painter Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (1824-1898). This gorgeously illustrated volume with over 500 full color illustrations, was organized by Serge Lemoine, director of Musée d'Orsay in Paris, and includes over 15 essays by distinguished writers. Lemoine's side-by-side comparisons and expert commentary bear witness to his groundbreaking thesis.


About the Author
Serge Lemoine is director of the Musée d'Orsay.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

"This catalogue of the exhibition at the Palazzo Grassi in Venice presents a ground-breaking interpretation of the birth of modern art. Serge Lemoine, curator of the exhibition and director of the Musee d'Orsay, proposes that "modern art does not descend, as is commonly thought, from Manet and Impressionism, but from ... the French painter Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (1824-1898)." The author of monumental mural decorations in such civic buildings as the museums of Amiens, Lyons, Rouen, the Pantheon and the Sorbonne, Puvis de Chavannes had a remarkable influence on his contemporaries in France and abroad, including Seurat, Gauguin and Cezanne, as well as on later generations of artists. Equally indebted to Puvis de Chavannes are the great European symbolist painters, from Munch to Hodler. However, perhaps his most prestigious modern acolytes were Picasso and Matisse, who remained loyal to him all their lives." This volume features detailed scholarly contributions analyzing Puvis de Chavannes's work and all his affiliations, as well as offering rich critical and documentary data on his numerous and notable disciples. Accompanied by over five hundred illustrations, this volume is a superb evocation of a period of great artistic ferment and outstanding creativity.

FROM THE CRITICS

Library Journal