Pierre Puvis de Chavannes

by Aimée Brown Price

Overview

An artist of pivotal importance to the generation of post-Impressionists from Seurat and Gauguin to Matisse and Picasso, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (1824 - 1898) played a crucial role in the history of late-19th-century French art and the development of modernism. He was an artist of great range, originality, and idiosyncratic invention who executed mural complexes, compelling easel paintings, and numerous works on paper. These two companion volumes—a critical study of the artist's life and art, and a catalogue raisonné of his paintings—introduce many of Puvis’s works for the first time, assess his contribution, and restore him to the pantheon of modern masters.

Volume I situates Puvis and his work in his time. With a wealth of new documentation, it addresses the theories, forces, and events that impinged on his art. Volume II is a complete compendium of Puvis's easel paintings and mural cycles for civic buildings throughout France as well as for the Boston Public Library.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780300115710
Publisher:	Yale University Press
Publication date:	05/18/2010
Pages:	672
Product dimensions:	10.10(w) x 12.20(h) x 2.60(d)

About the Author

Aimée Brown Price is an independent scholar and the acknowledged authority on Puvis de Chavannes. In 1994 she organized a pioneering exhibition on his work at the Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam. She lives in New York City.

Editorial Reviews

. . . luxurious and profusely illustrated. . . . Brown Price’s catalogue raisonne will be. . . frequently consulted in decades to come.”

—Chris Riopelle, The Art Newspaper

The Art Newspaper - Chris Riopelle

A splendid production, amply supplied with plates in both color and black and white, featuring particularly fine new photography of the architecturally-installed murals, which earned him his greatest renown. Never have students of art and history had the opportunity to so fully explore the complexities of this most singular of painters. Without a doubt the book will remain a landmark in the essential scholarship of the period.” —19th Century Art Worldwide

19th Century Art Worldwide

These two volumes are the culmination of art historian Price's many years of research on 19th-century French artist Pierre Puvis de Chanvannes. Volume 1 contextualizes him in relation to the cultural, social, and political climate of his time. In a career spanning five decades (1848–98), Puvis created 450 painted works, three mural projects for private homes, and 11 monumental mural cycles for public buildings (all of which are detailed in Volume 2, the catalogue raisonné of Puvis's painted works). The public buildings included the fine arts museums at Amiens, Rouen, Marseille, and Lyon, the Hotel de Ville in Poitiers and Paris, and the Life of Saint Genevieve mural in the Church of the Pantheon, Paris. Influenced by the students of Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Théodore Chassériau, and Henri Lehmann as well as by Eugène Delacroix, Puvis's work was pervaded by a classicism that befitted these municipal commissions. Employing a flat, decorative style and a simplification of form, Puvis appealed to the postimpressionists as well as to the symbolist artists such as Maurice Denis. VERDICT With its thorough scholarly documentation and because of its high price, this book is recommended for specialists in 19th-century French art.—Sandra Rothenberg, Framingham State Coll., MA

Library Journal