Book Description
Renoir's La Promenade is one of the most engaging and approachable of all Impressionist paintings. This study of the work--a masterpiece from the Getty collection--reveals surprising details about the sexual, historical, and artistic contexts in which the painting was created.

FROM OUR EDITORS

In this publication from the J. Paul Getty Museum, art historian John House trains his expert gaze on "La Promenade," a seminal work of Impressionism that defied the traditional standards of art expression in an age of political upheaval. The discussion of Renoir's point of view and its possible meanings is a fresh interpretation of a beloved subject.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

John House examines the many facets of the work and what it reveals about Renoir as a man and artist. He asks, "What did it mean to paint a picture like La Promenade in France in 1870, in the final months of Napoleon III's Second Empire?" The reader is invited to look at the canvas - and Impressionism - as a rejection of the idealist world of academic art and as a challenge to contemporary social norms.

FROM THE CRITICS

Booknews