October 2009 HARDCOVER ISBN 13: 978-1-55595-325-6 ISBN: 1-55595-325-5 208 pages 9 1/2 x 12 in. 24 x 31 cm. 130 color plates US $ 50 UK £ 35
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The Lens of Impressionism Photography and Painting on the Normandy Coast, 1850-1874
By Sylvie Aubenas, Stephen Bann, Dominique de Font-Réaulx, Carole McNamara et al.
♦ Features more than 100 paintings, photographs, and
drawings by some of the most highly regarded and admired
Western artists—Courbet, Corot, Manet, Monet, and Degas
among them, as well as pioneering photographers Gustave Le
Gray and Henri Le Secq
The Normandy Coast, with its craggy coastline and medieval
fishing villages, has long captured the interest of artists. Its
seascapes are featured in the work of Impressionist masters
Monet,Manet, and Boudin. Its seafaring life is welldocumented
in the work of such writers as Victor Hugo and Guy
de Maupassant.
Through a stunning selection of paintings, photographs,
and drawings, The Lens of Impressionism argues that a unique
convergence of forces—social, artistic, technological,
and commercial—along the Normandy coast profoundly
impacted the development of early Impressionism
and made Normandy a nexus for photographers and the
avant-garde painters of the later nineteenth century.
As author Carole McNamara writes, “Impressionist painting
has always endeavored to convey motion, but new possibilities
and solutions were presented by photography
. . . if painters were to continue to create works that had relevance
to modern audiences, then the expression of time—of
‘instantaneity’—would become an increasingly important
consideration in their own work.”
Carole McNamara, is Senior Curator of Western Art, at
the University of Michigan Museum of Art. Sylvie Aubenas,
is Curator of Nineteenth-Century Photography, Bibliothèque
Nationale Française. Stephen Bann, teaches at the University
of Bristol. Dominique de Font-Réaulx, is Curator of
Photography, Musée d'Orsay.
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