Bristling with demons, grotesques, and bizarre apparitions, the graphic work of Odilon Redon has often seemed to be the product of a mind unhinged. In The Temptation of Saint Redon, Stephen F. Eisenman argues instead that these works are Redon's conscious and considered response to changing social realities—an attempt to find refuge from the forces of modernization in an imaginative world of the macabre and the fantastic. Eisenman's careful attention to the circumstances of Redon's life (1840-1916) allows him to bring into focus the interconnections between Redon's complex style and the culture and society of his time. Born and raised on a sixteenth-century estate near Bordeaux, Redon was immersed as a child in traditional rural culture. "I spent my entire childhood in the Médoc completely free, among peasant children," he recalled in his memoirs. "I heard them tell supernatural tales—witches still exist there."Indeed, local tales and legends of witches, ghosts, one-eyed monsters, evil eyes, and wood fairies figure prominently in Redon's graphic works, which he called his noirs, or "blacks." After formal training at Bordeaux and Paris in the 1850s and 1860s, Redon began to chart his independent artistic course. Eisenman shows how, rejecting both naturalism and classicism, Redon, a prototypical Symbolist, found in grotesque and epic genres the expression of organic communities and precapitalist societies. He places Redon's desire for this imagined world of superstitious simplicity a desire manifest in his entire mature artistic practice in the context of contemporary avant-garde movements.Redon's great noirs of the 1870s and 1880s, dreamlike configurations of seemingly irreconcilable elements from portraits, still lifes, and landscapes, show an increasingly subtle control of connotation and a complex indebtedness to caricature, allegory, and puns. Many of the noirs also visually interpret works by like-minded authors, including Baudelaire, Flaubert, Poe, and Mallarmé, one of Redon's close friends. Eisenman's analysis of the noirs underscores Redon's interest in creating an imaginative, even fantastic art, that could act directly on the human spirit. In addition to deepening our understanding of Redon and his art, The Temptation of Saint Redon exposes a link between place, politics, personal history, and the artistic imagination.

The Temptation of Saint Redon: Biography, Ideology, and Style in the Noirs of Odilon Redon

Arts & Photography

Eisenman, Stephen F.

History & Criticism

University of Chicago Press

This is the first critical catalogue of the collection of nineteenth-century paintings and drawings in the Norton Simon Museum of Art. World-renowned for its strength in works by the French impressionists and post-impressionists―Monet, Renoir, Gauguin, Cézanne and Van Gogh―the Museum also houses outstanding paintings by the Realist Gustave Courbet, and the Barbizon painter Camille Corot among others. Each of the 138 artworks featured in the book is illustrated in color and accompanied by a full catalogue entry, comprising critical essay exhibition and ownership history, bibliography and conservation notes. Color reproductions of comparative works from other collections―public and private―are also included. Stephen Eisenman and Richard Brettell have conjoined their unique perspectives on nineteenth-century art to summarize existing scholarship of the period, and most of all, shed new light on a collection of important but little-studied masterpieces. They have also collaborated in writing an introduction to the catalogue that for the first time places the collector Norton Simon in the historical, intellectual, and economic context of his time.

Nineteenth-Century Art in the Norton Simon Museum, Volume 1

Brettell, Richard R.

Norton Simon Distribution

Gauguin's Skirt is about contemporary Tahitians and a long-dead French painter, sex today and sex in the late nineteenth century, and colonialism new and old. It is concerned with Paul Gauguin's practices as an artist and with the practice of daily life in Polynesia. Written on the boundary between art history and anthropology, it reads like a biography and a mystery. Paul Gauguin traveled to Tahiti in 1891 in search of an exotic paradise. What he found was a French colony divided by race, sex, and class. At once, the artist began to explore the complexities of his world through the media of drawing, painting, printmaking, and sculpting. His work depicts ancient and modern Tahitians at leisure and labor in the fecund landscape of Polynesia; it exposes as well the contradictory perspective of an avant-garde artist exiled both from the modern French metropolis and from the secrets and traditions of indigenous culture. Based upon extensive archival and ethnographic research in France and Tahiti, Gauguin's Skirt challenges interpretations of the political and gender content of the notorious artist's pictures. It compares fin-de-siÃ…cle European and Polynesian sexualities and spiritualities, and it argues that many of Gauguin's most famous pictures are far more knowing than had previously been supposed.

Gauguin's Skirt

Individual Artists

Thames&Hudson

Will be shipped from US. Used books may not include companion materials, may have some shelf wear, may contain highlighting/notes, may not include CDs or access codes. 100% money back guarantee.

Nineteenth Century Art: A Critical History

Crow, Thomas E.

In art as in music, literature, philosophy, and political economy, the nineteenth century was a period of questioning, experimentation, discovery, and modernization. From Goya to Blake, from David to Delacroix, from Courbet to Cézanne, artists explored the links between perception and history, and in so doing challenged the prevailing definitions of art and the existing order of society. 
First published in 1994, this innovative and groundbreaking survey details the development of a critical perspective in nineteenth-century painting and sculpture. For the revised edition, a new introduction by Stephen F. Eisenman provides a cogent overview of the century, its issues, and its art. Three completely new chapters have been added, which discuss photography and its crucial role in nineteenth-century art; American and German landscape painting and its effect on the growth of romantic nationalism in each country; and Toulouse-Lautrec, whose popular appeal consists both in his work's novel technique and medium and in its exotic sexual perspectives. 
Nineteenth Century Art embraces many aspects of the "new" art history—attention to issues of class and gender, racism, and Eurocentrism—but it also emphasizes the remarkable vitality and subversiveness of the era's best art. Indeed, nineteenth-century artists addressed many of the aesthetic, political, and moral issues that preoccupy audiences and historians today, such as the relationship between popular and elite culture, and the representation of women and non-European peoples in Western art. 
This rich and diverse volume demonstrates that nineteenth-century art remains compelling today because its critical insights have rarely been surpassed. It will prove of interest not only to the specialist but also to anyone fascinated by the art, history, and culture of the era. 428 illustrations, 63 in color.

Nochlin, Linda

Pohl, Frances K.

Phillips, David L.

Lukacher, Brian

History

This work is about contemporary Tahitians and a long-dead French painter, sex today and sex in the late-19th century, and colonialism old and new. Paul Gauguin travelled to Tahiti in 1891 in search of an exotic paradise. What he found instead was a French colony ostentatiously divided by race, sex and class. The artist began to explore the complexities of his world through drawing, painting, printmaking and sculpting. These works depict ancient and modern Tahitians at labour and leisure and the landscape of Polynesia; they also expose the contradictory perspective of an avant-garde artist exiled both from the modern French metropolis and from the traditions of the indigenous Maohi culture.

In art as in music, literature, philosophy, and political economy, the nineteenth century was a period of questioning, experimentation, discovery, and modernization. From Goya to Blake, from David to Delacroix, from Courbet to Cezanne, artists explored the links between perception and history, and in so doing challenged the prevailing definitions of art and the existing order of society. First published in 1994, this innovative and ground-breaking survey details the development of a critical perspective in nineteenth-century painting and sculpture. For the revised edition, a new introduction by Stephen Eisenman provides a cogent overview of the century, its issues, and its art. Three completely new chapters have been added, which discuss photography and its crucial role in nineteenth-century art; American and German landscape painting and its effect on the growth of romantic nationalism in each country; and Toulouse-Lautrec, whose popular appeal consists both in his work's novel technique and medium and in its exotic sexual perspectives. Nineteenth Century Art embraces many aspects of the "new" art historyattention to issues of class and gender, racism, and Eurocentrismbut it also emphasizes the remarkable vitality and subversiveness of the era's best art. Indeed, nineteenth-century artists addressed many of the aesthetic, political, and moral issues that preoccupy audiences and historians today, such as the relationship between popular and elite culture, and the representation of women and non-European peoples in Western art. This rich and diverse volume demonstrates that nineteenth-century art remains compelling today because its critical insights have rarely been surpassed. It will prove of interest not only to the specialist, but to anyone fascinated by the art, history, and culture of the era. 428 illustrations, 63 in color.

Phillips, David Llewellyn

"Rich in ideas and illustrations...of interest to scholars and art enthusiasts alike."―Library Journal Adopted at over four hundred colleges and universities since its first publication in 1994, this book has established itself as the most popular and highly regarded textbook in the field. It embraces many aspects of the new, revised art history (its attention to issues of class and gender; its critiques of racism and Eurocentrism), but it also emphasizes the remarkable vitality and subversiveness that constitute the legacy of the best nineteenth-century art. The third edition incorporates new chapters on design and architecture; increased coverage of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and Naturalism in Germany; and a new discussion of the Vienna Secession and the challenges to Academic painting in Russia. 496 illustrations, 193 in color

"Rich in ideas and illustrations...of interest to scholars and art enthusiasts alike."―Library Journal Since its first publication in 1994, this book has established itself as the most popular and highly regarded textbook in the field. It embraces many aspects of the so-called “new” art history while at the same time emphasizing the remarkable vitality, salience, and subversiveness of the era’s best art. The new edition includes four revised chapters together with a substantially expanded chapter on photography. With more than a dozen new images, this rich and diverse volume will interest students, specialists, and anyone fascinated by this dynamic period. In addition to Stephen F. Eisenman, the contributors are Thomas Crow, Brian Lukacher, Linda Nochlin, David Llewellyn Phillips, and Frances K. Pohl. 245 color and 265 black-and-white illustrations

Nineteenth Century Art A Critical History 3rd ed. /anglais

"Rich in ideas and illustrations...of interest to scholars and art enthusiasts alike."―Library Journal Since its first publication in 1994, this book has established itself as the most popular and highly regarded textbook in the field. It embraces many aspects of the so-called “new” art history while at the same time emphasizing the remarkable vitality, salience, and subversiveness of the era’s best art. The new edition includes four revised chapters together with a substantially expanded chapter on photography. With more than a dozen new images, this rich and diverse volume will interest students, specialists, and anyone fascinated by this dynamic period. In addition to Stephen F. Eisenman, the contributors are Thomas Crow, Brian Lukacher, Linda Nochlin, David Llewellyn Phillips, and Frances K. Pohl. 245 color and 265 black-and-white illustrations

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Eisenman, Stephen F.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Eisenman, Stephen F.

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Eisenman, Stephen F.. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

The Temptation of Saint Redon: Biography, Ideology, and Style in the Noirs of Odilon Redon

Nineteenth-Century Art in the Norton Simon Museum, Volume 1

Gauguin's Skirt

Nineteenth Century Art: A Critical History

Nineteenth Century Art: A Critical History

Gauguin's Skirt

Nineteenth Century Art: A Critical History

Nineteenth Century Art: A Critical History

Nineteenth Century Art A Critical History 3rd ed. /anglais

Nineteenth Century Art: A Critical History