Renoir landscapes, 1865-1883

Renoir's art is so associated with the exaltation of human figure that one tends to forget how frequently he painted landscapes. The essays explore from several viewpoints the importance of the genre in the development of his art. The essay by Simon Kelly (Nelson-Atkins Museum) rehearses once again the importance for Renoir and his friends the loosely finished style of the Barbizon painters (Millet, Corot, Rousseau, and Courbet) and their humble subject matter. Christopher Riopelle (National Gallery, London) addresses another topos of Impressionist studies, the city as a modern subject for the new art, and Renoir's response to the radical transformation of Paris under Haussmann as it is recorded in his cityscapes. In the most ambitious essay, Bailey (Frick Collection) claims that Renoir's interest in landscape was grafted to a temperament deeply immersed in the French figurative tradition with all the negative biases toward nature that that entailed; as he proves, Monet's art came to be a liberating example in both motif and style for the young artist. Bailey further argues that as Renoir's art developed, he found in painting nature a spiritual respite from his portrait commissions, and it is there that one finds the artist at his most innovative. Summing Up: Recommended. General readers; lower-division undergraduates through faculty. L. R. Matteson formerly, University of Southern California

This catalog by curators Bailey (Frick Collection, New York) and Riopelle (National Gallery, London) accompanies a show traveling through Ottawa (6/1/07-9/9/07) and Philadelphia (9/30/07-1/6/08) that focuses on Pierre-Auguste Renoir's (1841-1919) unconventional landscape painting. In four essays, individual scholars provide background on how Renoir-known in his lifetime as a figure painter-created extraordinary landscapes, placing him in the context of 19th-century French art, in particular, landscape painters influenced by Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Gustave Courbet, and the Barbizon school. A lushly illustrated, highly informative section covers 73 of the exhibit's distinctive works, providing for each a full-page description and history, the medium used, the size, the provenance, and a bibliography. A detailed topographical chronology for the years 1860-83 contains much biographical information. And finally, an interesting "Analysis of Salon Catalogues" sidebar demonstrates how the subject matter shown at the Salon de Paris has changed over time. This distinctive and important contribution to the literature on the impressionists and one of the greatest and most popular French painters of all time may be enjoyed by the museum-going public as well as studied by art historians. Recommended for all public and special collections.-Ellen Bates, New York (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.