Steven Z. Levine provides a new understanding of the life and work of Claude Monet and the myth of the modern artist. Levine analyzes the extensive critical reception of Monet and the artist's own prolific writings in the context of the story of Narcissus, popular in late nineteenth-century France. Through a careful blending of psychoanalytical theory and historical study, Levine identifies narcissism and obsession as driving forces in Monet's art and demonstrates how we derive meaning from the accumulated verbal responses to an artist's work.

A stunning exploration of the vital links between Claude Monet's Impressionism and the time technologies that helped define modernity in the nineteenth century Monet's Minutes is a revelatory account charting the relationship between the works of Claude Monet (1840-1926)--founder of French Impressionism and one of the world's best-known painters--and the modern experience of time. André Dombrowski illuminates Monet's celebration of instantaneity in the context of the late nineteenth-century time technologies that underwrote it. Monet's version of Impressionism demonstrated an acute awareness of the particularly modern pressures of time, but until now scholars have not examined the histories and technologies of time and timekeeping that informed Impressionism's major stylistic shifts. Arguing that the fascination with instantaneity rejected the dulling cultures of newly routinized and standardized time, Monet's Minutes traces the evolution of Monet's art to what were then seismic shifts in the shape of time itself. In each chapter, Dombrowski focuses on the connections between a set of Monet's works and a specific technology or experience of time, while providing the voices of period critics responding to Impressionism. Grounded in exceptional research and analyses, this book offers new interpretations of key works by Monet and a fresh perspective on late nineteenth-century art, society, and modern temporality.

Restless, protean, fluid, evanescent—despite being a challenge to represent visually, water has gained a striking significance in the art of the twentieth century. This may be due to the fact that it allows for a range of metaphorical meanings, many of which are particularly appropriate to the modern age. Water is not merely a subject of contemporary art, but also a material increasingly used in art-making, giving it a distinct dual presence. Water and Art probes the ways in which water has gained an unprecedented prominence in modern Western art and seeks to draw connections to its depiction in earlier art forms. David Clarke looks across cultures, finding parallels within contemporary Chinese art, which draws on a cultural tradition in which water has an essential presence and is used as both a subject and a medium. The book features a wealth of images by artists from East and West, including Fu Baoshi, Shi Tao, Wei Zixi, Fang Rending, Leonardo da Vinci, Bernini, Turner, Gericault, Klee, Matisse, Monet, Picasso, Mondrian, and Kandinsky. Fast-paced, accessible, and comprehensive, Water and Art will appeal to the specialist and the general reader alike, offering fresh perspectives on familiar artists as well as an introduction to others who are less well-known.

Abstracts of papers delivered at the annual meetings of the College Art Association of America.

An accessible, engaging introduction to the life and work of Claude Monet.

The arts.

Catalog of an exhibition held at the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Ga., Feb. 27-May 16, 1999.