The Painting of Modern Life: Paris in the Art of Manet and His Followers
The Paris of the 1860s and 1870s was supposedly a brand-new city, equipped with boulevards, cafés, parks, and suburban pleasure grounds—the birthplace of those habits of commerce and leisure that constitute "modern life." Questioning those who view Impressionism solely in terms of artistic technique, T. J. Clark describes the painting of Manet, Degas, Seurat, and others as an attempt to give form to that modernity and seek out its typical representatives—be they bar-maids, boaters,...
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The Paris of the 1860s and 1870s was supposedly a brand-new city, equipped with boulevards, cafés, parks, and suburban pleasure grounds--the birthplace of those habits of commerce and leisure that constitute "modern life." Questioning those who view Impressionism solely in terms of artistic technique, T. J. Clark describes the painting of Manet, Degas, Seurat, and others as an attempt to give form to that modernity and seek out its typical representatives--be they bar-maids, boaters, prostitutes, sightseers, or petits bourgeois lunching on the grass. The central question of The Painting of Modern Life is this: did modern painting as it came into being celebrate the consumer-oriented culture of the Paris of Napoleon III, or open it to critical scrutiny? The revised edition of this classic book includes a new preface by the author.David Harvey - Journal of Historical GeographyThe Painting of Modern Life is a very good and very beautiful book. It deserves the closest critical attention.... It is a book that will stir up passion and controversy.
IllustrationsAcknowledgementsPreface to the Revised EditionIntroduction3Ch. 1The View from Notre Dame23Ch. 2Olympia's Choice79Ch. 3The Environs of Paris147Ch. 4A Bar at the Folies-Bergere205Conclusion259Notes271Bibliography319Index327
\ Journal of Historical GeographyThe Painting of Modern Life is a very good and very beautiful book. It deserves the closest critical attention.... It is a book that will stir up passion and controversy.\ — David Harvey\ \ \ \ \ Art MonthlyThat he restores a social and historical context to the work he discusses—from Manet's Musique aux Tuileries to Seurat's Grande Jatte—is not what is most original about Clark's book, elegant and telling as his delineation generally is.... What really lifts the book into a category of its own is the manner in which the assimilation of contextual detail and the observation of pictorial detail are worked together into an argument.\ — Charles Harrison\ \ \ The New York TimesMr. Clark ... writes with considerable verve; his interpretations of individual paintings are often illuminating, and he is soaked in the social history of the period with which he deals.\ — John Gross\ \ \ \ \ The Times Literary SupplementLike everything that T. J. Clark writes, [this] book bubbles with new ideas and old ideas freshly turned; it is intriguing, suggestive and well written.\ — Eugen Weber\ \ \ \ \ Journal of Historical GeographyThe Painting of Modern Life is a very good and very beautiful book. It deserves the closest critical attention.... It is a book that will stir up passion and controversy.\ \ \ \ \ Art MonthlyThat he restores a social and historical context to the work he discusses—from Manet's Musique aux Tuileries to Seurat's Grande Jatte—is not what is most original about Clark's book, elegant and telling as his delineation generally is.... What really lifts the book into a category of its own is the manner in which the assimilation of contextual detail and the observation of pictorial detail are worked together into an argument.\ \ \ \ \ The New York TimesMr. Clark ... writes with considerable verve; his interpretations of individual paintings are often illuminating, and he is soaked in the social history of the period with which he deals.\ \ \ \ \ The Times Literary SupplementLike everything that T. J. Clark writes, [this] book bubbles with new ideas and old ideas freshly turned; it is intriguing, suggestive and well written.\ \ \ \ \ Art MonthlyThat he restores a social and historical context to the work he discusses—from Manet's Musique aux Tuileries to Seurat's Grande Jatte—is not what is most original about Clark's book, elegant and telling as his delineation generally is.... What really lifts the book into a category of its own is the manner in which the assimilation of contextual detail and the observation of pictorial detail are worked together into an argument.\ — Charles Harrison\ \ \ \ \ Journal of Historical GeographyThe Painting of Modern Life is a very good and very beautiful book. It deserves the closest critical attention.... It is a book that will stir up passion and controversy.\ — David Harvey\ \
