Professor Kermit Champa shares his new insight into the musical climate of the time; Fronia Wissman reexamines the relation of these avant-garde artists to the official Paris Salon; Richard R. Brettell presents the critical and theoretical background that provided a context for the rise of landscape painting; and Deborah Johnson traces in new ways the combined influence of the Japanese print and photography on painting. Insightful entries on the individual artists sort out the role of the painters and their work in the art-historical and musical context of mid-nineteenth-century life.

Review: "Written to stress the crosscurrent of ideas, this cultural encyclopedia provides clearly written and authoritative articles. Thoughts, themes, people, and nations that define the Romantic Era, as well as some frequently overlooked topics, receive their first encyclopedic treatments in 850 signed articles, with bibliographies and coverage of historical antecedents and lingering influences of romanticism. Even casual browsers will discover much to enjoy here."--"The Top 20 Reference Titles of the Year," American Libraries, May 2004.

This book explores many issues raised by the range of ideas and images of the natural world in Western art since the Renaissance. The whole concept of landscape is examined as a representation of the relationship between the human and natural worlds. Featured artists include Claude, Freidrich, Turner, Cole and Ruisdael, and many different forms of landscape art are addressed, such as land art, painting, photography, garden design, panorama and cartography.

The French Revolution had a marked impact on the ways in which citizens saw the newly liberated spaces in which they now lived. Painting, gardening, cinematic displays of landscape, travel guides, public festivals, and tales of space flight and devilabduction each shaped citizens’ understanding of space. Through an exploration of landscape painting over some 40 years, Steven Adams examines the work of artists, critics and contemporary observers who have largely escaped art historical attention to show the importance of landscape as a means of crystallising national identity in a period of unprecedented political and social change.

"This volume is an exciting, eclectic collection of essays in honor of Kermit S. Champa, a leading scholar of impressionism and critic of twentieth-century art. The lead essay by David Carrier is followed by others from several generations of scholars and museum curators trained by Professor Champa. Together, they cover an extremely wide historical range, from the eighteenth to twenty-first centuries, and honor Professor Champa's own scholarly rigor, methodological diversity, and intellectual breadth through topics ranging from art history to cultural studies."--Jacket

The 19th century in France witnessed the emergence of the structures of the modern art market that remain until this day. This book examines the relationship between the avant-garde Barbizon landscape painter, Théodore Rousseau (1812-1867), and this market, exploring the constellation of patrons, art dealers and critics who surrounded the artist. It argues for the pioneering role of Rousseau, his patrons and his public in the origins of the modern art market, and, in so doing, shifts attention away from the more traditional focus on the novel careers of the Impressionists and their supporters. Drawing on extensive archival research, the book provides new insight into the role of the modern artist as professional. It provides a new understanding of the complex iconographical and formal choices within Rousseau's work, rediscovering the original radical charge that once surrounded the artist's work and led to extensive and peculiarly modern tensions with the market place.

With its fittingly dramatic design, Courbet and the Modern Landscape accompanies the first major museum exhibition specifically to address Gustave Courbet's extraordinary achievement in landscape painting. Many of these carefully selected works produced from 1855 to 1876--gathered from Asia, Europe, and North America--will be new to readers. The catalogue--which accompanies an exhibition at the Getty Museum to be held from February 21 to May 14, 2006--highlights the artist's expressive responses to the natural environment. Essays by the curators examine Courbet's distinctly modern practice of landscape painting. Mary Morton's essay situates his landscapes in relation to his work in other genres, his critical reputation, and his role in establishing a new pictorial language for landscape painting. Charlotte Eyerman's essay investigates how later generations of nineteenth- and twentieth-century artists responded to Courbet's example. The catalogue also includes an essay by Dominique de Font-Reaulx, curator of photographs at the Musee d'Orsay, on the relationship between Courbet's work and landscape photography of the 1850s and 1860s. With its fittingly dramatic design, Courbet and the Modern Landscape accompanies the first major museum exhibition specifically to address Gustave Courbet's extraordinary achievement in landscape painting. Many of these carefully selected works produced from 1855 to 1876--gathered from Asia, Europe, and North America--will be new to readers. The catalogue--which accompanies an exhibition at the Getty Museum to be held from February 21 to May 14, 2006--highlights the artist's expressive responses to the natural environment. Essays by the curators examine Courbet's distinctly modern practice of landscape painting. Mary Morton's essay situates his landscapes in relation to his work in other genres, his critical reputation, and his role in establishing a new pictorial language for landscape painting. Charlotte Eyerman's essay investigates how later generations of nineteenth- and twentieth-century artists responded to Courbet's example. The catalogue also includes an essay by Dominique de Font-Reaulx, curator of photographs at the Musee d'Orsay, on the relationship between Courbet's work and landscape photography of the 1850s and 1860s.

A volume which embodies an entire generation of scholarship on the artist. Seurat's brief but brilliant career is traced from his early academic drawings of the 1870s to the paintings of popular entertainments and the serene landscapes of his final years.