As the discipline of art history has moved away from connoisseurship, the notion of beauty has become increasingly problematic. Both culturally and personally subjective, the term is difficult to define and nearly universally avoided. In this insightful book, Richard R. Brettell, one of the leading authorities on Impressionism and French art of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, dares to confront the concept of modern beauty head-on. This is not a study of aesthetic philosophy, but rather a richly contextualised look at the ambitions of specific artists and artworks at a particular time and place.
Brettell shapes his manifesto around three masterworks from the collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum: Edouard Manet's 'Jeanne' (Spring), Paul Gauguin's 'Arii Matamoe' (The Royal End) and Paul Cezanne's 'Young Italian Woman at a
Table'. The provocative and wide-ranging discussion reveals how each of these exceptional paintings, though depicting
very different subjects-a fashionable actress, a severed head and a weary working woman-enacts a revolutionary, yet
enduring, icon of beauty.
- ISBN10 1606066064
- ISBN13 9781606066065
- Publish Date 11 June 2019
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Publisher Getty Trust Publications
- Imprint Getty Publications
- Format Paperback
- Pages 103
- Language English