The Judgement of Paris: Manet, Meisonnier and An Artistic Revolution |
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Author:
Ross King
By Chatto & Windus
Average Customer Rating:  
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Product Description
It is hard to believe it now, but in 1863, the French painter, Ernest Meissonier was one of the most famous artists in the world. The darling of the 'Salon' - that all-important public exhibition of Art held biannually in Paris - he painted historical subjects in meticulous detail and sold his works for astronomical sums to collectors, who included Napoleon III himself. Manet, on the other hand, was struggling in obscurity. Famous today as the 'Father of Impressionism', when this book opens he was known only as the sloppy painter of a few much-derided canvases, depicting bourgeois gentlemen in top hats and Absinthe-drinking beggars. With his usual narrative brilliance, and eye for telling detail, Ross King has taken the parallel careers of Meissonier and Manet and used them as a lens for their times. Beginning with the year that Manet exhibited his ground-breaking 'Dejeuner sur l'herbe' and ending in 1874, with the first 'Impressionist' exhibition, King plunges us into Parisian life - on the streets and in the corridors of power - during a ten-year period full of social and political ferment. These were the years in which Napoleon III's censorious and pleasure-seeking Second Empire fell from its heights into the ignominy of the Franco-Prussian war and the ensuing Paris Commune of 1871. But also, when a group of artists, with Manet at the vanguard, began to challenge the establishment by refusing to paint classical or historical subjects and, instead, turning to the landscapes and ordinary people they saw around them. Benign as such paintings might seem today, they helped change the course of history. The struggle between Meissonier and Manet to get their paintings exhibited in pride of place at the Salon was not just about Art, it was about how to see the world.
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Details make this book exceptional, 2008-01-05
The Judgement of Paris is the second of Ross King's books I have read. Brunelleschi's Dome is also excellent.
This wonderfully detailed book about the decade which sees the shift in emphasis in art from detailed historical allegory to expressive modern day subject matter and the emphasis in painting moving from supporting political powers to an exploration of individual response to current life and times is superb in detail, historical reference and full of minute snippets of information which could only have been found by careful research. No art book, or art reference book I have read, and there have been many, offered this type of detail. One feels they have had a glimpse into the lives of these artists. King literally fills the pages with passionate detail of their lives including the emotional response to their failures and triumphs. Amazingly annotated.
I have read it twice and lead a book club discussion on the book. Well worth the read.
 packed with a massive amount of information, 2007-09-23
The Judgement of Paris is a very scholarly book. You can tell that Ross King delved into the period of this time and thoroughly investigated this work.
I have spent a lot of time learning about impressionism, primarily through large coffee table books with long essays and historical time-lines. However, here, King takes a totally unexpected and unusual stand. He investigates the rising and falling fortunes of two artists, Manet and Messonier. At the start of this book, King goes into detail about how Messonier was probably the most popular and successful artist of his time and Manet was at his start an out-cast.
I came to feel that Manet was the spiritual leader of the impressionist movement. I learned a lot about the beginnings of impressionism. If you want a thorough look at Impressionism's start, this is the book for you. The writing is stilted, and the constant name-dropping and step by step process gets a little tedious. But I still enjoyed all the learning I did.
Paris In The Spring Of Modernism, 2006-09-02
Excellent. Reads like a novel. Interweaves the political, social and cultural events of an exciting period in modern art history.
Ross King follows the careers of Manet and Meissionier, painters at opposite poles of the art establishment, in the decade between the first Salon des Refuses in 1863 and the first Impressionist show in 1874. Set against the lite-opera of France's Second Empire under Louis Napoleon, he champions both artists and alternates back and forth between their very different careers.
Meissonier was the successful leader of the Salon style of historical painting with it's meticulous attention to detail and bourgeois moral value. Manet broke with the conventions of Salon painting and took on "the painting of modern life" with a direct style of brush handling that infuriated most critics and precipitated the Impressionist movement.
In addition to quick sketches of the other players in the Paris art scene - Zola, Baudelaire, Delacroix, Courbet, Monet, Hugo, Degas and many more, he engrossingly chronicles the Salon process and the way it dominated the careers of artists and the attention of the rising middle class.
This is an excellent introduction to the histrionic drama of late nineteenth century Modernist painting.
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Binding: Hardcover
EAN: 9780701176839
ISBN: 0701176830
Label: Chatto & Windus
Manufacturer: Chatto & Windus
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 320
Publication Date: 2006-05-23
Publisher: Chatto & Windus
Release Date: 2006-05-23
Studio: Chatto & Windus |
