It is so good, after so many years of public indifference, even hostility towards Vincent and his work, to feel towards the end of my life that the battle is won.' JO VAN GOGH-BONGER TO GUSTAVE COQUIOT, 1922 'It is a sacrifice for the sake of Vincent's glory.' JO VAN GOGH-BONGER ON THE SALE OF 'THE SUNFLOWERS' TO THE NATIONAL GALLERY, UK, 1924 Little known but no less influential, Jo van Gogh-Bonger was sister-in-law of Vincent van Gogh, wife of his brother, Theo. When the brothers died soon after each other, she took charge of Van Gogh's artistic legacy and devoted the rest of her life to disseminating his work. Despite being widowed with a young son, Jo successfully navigated the male-dominated world of the art market-publishing Van Gogh's letters, organizing exhibitions in the Netherlands and throughout the world, and making strategic sales to private individuals and influential dealers-ultimately establishing Van Gogh's reputation as one of the finest artists of his generation. In doing so, she fundamentally changed how we view the relationship between the artist and his work. She also lived a rich and fascinating life-not only was she friends with eminent writers and artists, but she also was active within the Social Democratic Labour Party and closely involved in emerging women's movements. Using rich source material, including unseen diaries, documents and letters, Hans Luijten charts the multi-faceted life of this visionary woman with the drive to shake the art world to its core.

Part of a series of exciting and luxurious Flame Tree Sketch Books Combining high-quality production with magnificent fine art, the covers are printed on foil in five colours, embossed, then foil stamped. The thick paper stock makes them perfect for sketching and drawing. These are perfect for personal use and make a dazzling gift. This example features Claude Monet: Bridge over a Pond for Water Lilies. 'All of a sudden,' Monet would one day recall, 'I had the revelation of the enchantment of my pond. I took up my palette...' And the rest is art-history. Again and again - well over 200 times, and often working on an enormous scale - Claude Monet would return to water lilies as his subject.

The late 19th century in France represents an extraordinary period of artistic achievement in the history of Western art. The successive artistic revolutions of Realism, Impressionism, and Post-Impressionism are here charted through more than 300 biographies of the most important painters, sculptors, and graphic artists of the time. Extensive surveys examine the life, training, work, personality, and influence of the renowned leaders of each movement, from Millet and Courbet to Monet, Manet, Renoir, and Degas, and Cezanne and Gauguin. With further in-depth articles on the lesser-known artists, this dictionary is the most comprehensive and authoritative guide to one of the most popular periods of art.

The Grove Art series, focusing on the most important periods and areas of art history, is derived from the critically acclaimed and award-winning The Grove Dictionary of Art. First published in 1996 in 34 volumes, The Dictionary has quickly established itself as the leading reference work on the visual arts, used by schools, universities, museums, and public libraries throughout the world. With articles written by leading scholars in each field, The Dictionary has frequently been praised for its breadth of coverage, accuracy, authority, and accessibility.

In the late 19th century, numerous Russian artists found inspiration in the style of French Impressionist painters. Often, a journey to Paris acted as a catalyst for their burgeoning interest in the movement. They developed a preference for working en plein air and aimed to capture transitory effects through a spontaneous and free handling of the brush. Many leading painters of the later Russian avant-garde arrived at their individual styles due to studying the Impressionist use of light. This lavishly illustrated volume explores the many-layered ways French Impressionism influenced the evolution of Russian art from the 1880s to the 1920s, including the work of painters as diverse as Ilya Repin, Valentin Serov, Konstantin Korovin, Natalia Goncharova, and Kazimir Malevich. Essays by many of the leading scholars in the field provide rich new insights into one of the most intriguing chapters of Russian modernism.

Claude Monet's water lily paintings are among the most iconic and beloved works of art of the past century. Yet these entrancing images were created at a time of terrible private turmoil and sadness for the artist. The dramatic history behind these paintings is little known; Ross King's Mad Enchantment tells the full story for the first time and, in the process, presents a compelling and original portrait of one of our most popular and cherished artists. By the outbreak of war in 1914, Monet, then in his mid-seventies, was one of the world's most famous and successful painters, with a large house in the country, a fleet of automobiles and a colossal reputation. However, he had virtually given up painting following the death of his wife Alice in 1911 and the onset of blindness a year later. Nonetheless, it was during this period of sorrow, ill health and creative uncertainty that - as the guns roared on the Western Front - he began the most demanding and innovative paintings he had ever attempted. Encouraged by close friends such as Georges Clemenceau, France's dauntless prime minister, Monet would work on these magnificent paintings throughout the war years and then for the rest of his life. So obsessed with his monumental task that the village barber was summoned to clip his hair as he worked beside his pond, he covered hundreds of yards of canvas with shimmering layers of pigment. As his ambitions expanded with his paintings, he began planning what he intended to be his legacy to the world: the `Musee Claude Monet' in the Orangerie in Paris. Drawing on letters and memoirs and focusing on this remarkable period in the artist's life, Mad Enchantment gives an intimate portrayal of Claude Monet in all his tumultuous complexity, and firmly places his water lily paintings among the greatest achievements in the history of art.

Today we view Cezanne as a monumental figure, but during his lifetime (1839-1906), many did not understand him or his work. With brilliant insight, drawing on a vast range of primary sources, Alex Danchev tells the story of an artist who was never accepted into the official Salon: he was considered a revolutionary at best and a barbarian at worst, whose paintings were unfinished, distorted and strange. His work sold to no one outside his immediate circle until his late thirties, and he maintained that 'to paint from nature is not to copy an object; it is to represent its sensations' - a belief way ahead of his time, with stunning implications that became the obsession of many other artists and writers, from Matisse and Braque to Rilke and Gertrude Stein. Beginning with the restless teenager from Aix who was best friends with Emile Zola at school, Danchev carries us through the trials of a painter tormented by self-doubt, who always remained an outsider, both of society and the bustle of the art world. Cezanne: A life delivers not only the fascinating days and years of the visionary who would 'astonish Paris with an apple', with interludes analysing his self-portraits, but also a complete assessment of Cezanne's ongoing influence through artistic imaginations in our own time. He is, as this life shows, a cultural icon comparable to Monet or Toulouse.

Gauguin's great diary from Tahiti almost never saw the light of day in its original form. The manuscript was sent by the artist from his island refuge to his friend Charles Morice in Paris, and published in 1901 with immediate success, under the two names of Paul Gauguin and Charles Morice. Morice, with Gauguin's permission, had 'edited' and enlarged it to make it more readable. How much of the charm and crispness of the manuscript had been lost in the process was anyone's guess. It was to be 40 years before Gauguin's original version came to light, and it is published here in a translation by the poet Jonathan Griffin, together with a detailed description by the art historian Jean Loize, who re-discovered the manuscript. Loize shows that Morice had in parts altered Gauguin's text beyond recognition - a startling discovery that entirely changed ideas about Gauguin's style and intentions. This genuine version of Noa-Noa is not only an important document, it is also a beautiful piece of writing: amusing, acid, wide-eyed, moving. Gauguin feared that, unedited, it would seem absurdly crude; and no doubt it would have, to most readers in his day. Today we can appreciate its sketch form, jerky directness, authentic freshness. This edition is illustrated with the watercolours, wood-engravings and drawings that Gauguin assembled for the book.

A singular thinker and an uncompromising seeker after artistic truth, Cezanne channelled a large part of his wide-ranging intellect and ferocious wit into his letters. This translation by Alex Danchev is based on a thorough re-examination of Cezanne's correspondence with family, friends and major figures from the literary and art worlds. Danchev's great achievement is to allow readers in English to hear Cezanne's voice for the first time in his own idiomatic, idiosyncratic style. And he sounds rather different from the Cezanne we thought we knew - richer, wittier, wiser, more philosophical, more irascible, above all more fully human. The letters offer fresh perspectives on his artistic vision, politics, friendships, psychology, philosophy, literary tastes and classical frame of reference. They provide an intimate insight into the preoccupations and personality of a legend.

Vincent van Gogh used art to express his intensely emotional response to the world around him. Enraptured by the beauty of nature and tormented by the sorrows of human existence, he produced in his tragically short life some of the most powerfully expressive paintings ever seen. Many have made the mistake of thinking him mad, and he did suffer throughout his life periods of mental anguish. But Van Gogh's paintings are not the works of a madman. Van Gogh famously sold only one painting during his life, but within a few years of his death he was recognized as one of the greatest modern painters.

Rilke's prayerful responses to the french master's beseeching art

For a long time nothing, and then suddenly one has the right eyes.

Virtually every day in the fall of 1907, Rainer Maria Rilke returned to a Paris gallery to view a Cezanne exhibition. Nearly as frequently, he wrote dense and joyful letters to his wife, Clara Westhoff, expressing his dismay before the paintings and his ensuing revelations about art and life.

Rilke was knowledgeable about art and had even published monographs, including a famous study of Rodin that inspired his New Poems. But Cezanne's impact on him could not be conveyed in a traditional essay. Rilke's sense of kinship with Cezanne provides a powerful and prescient undercurrent in these letters -- passages from them appear verbatim in Rilke's great modernist novel, The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge. Letters on Cezanne is a collection of meaningfully private responses to a radically new art.

A FLAME TREE POCKET NOTEBOOK. Beautiful and luxurious the journals combine high-quality production with magnificent art. Perfect as a gift, and an essential personal choice for writers, notetakers, travellers, students, poets and diarists. Features a wide range of well-known and modern artists, with new artworks published throughout the year. BEAUTIFULLY DESIGNED. The highly crafted covers are printed on foil paper, embossed then foil stamped, complemented by the luxury binding and rose red end-papers. The covers are created by our artists and designers who spend many hours transforming original artwork into gorgeous 3d masterpieces that feel good in the hand and look wonderful on a desk or table. PRACTICAL, EASY TO USE. Flame Tree Notebooks come with practical features too: a pocket at the back for scraps and receipts; two ribbon markers to help keep track of more than just a to-do list; robust ivory text paper, printed with lines; and when you need to collect other notes or scraps of paper the magnetic side flap keeps everything neat and tidy. THE ARTIST. 'All of a sudden,' Monet would one day recall, 'I had the revelation of the enchantment of my pond. I took up my palette...' And the rest is art-history. Again and again - well over 200 times, and often working on an enormous scale - Claude Monet would return to water lilies as his subject. THE FINAL WORD. As William Morris said, "Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."

Claude Monet spent most of his life painting his own spontaneous impressions of nature and the world that was closest to him. His works provoked the description 'Impressionist', the name given to the style of art that he created together with Camille Pissarro and Alfred Sisley.

Arguably the most important movement in the history of modern art, Impressionism changed the way audiences perceived painting. This elegant and portable book overflows with images and information about the movement's leading figures, tracing its development as different artists took up the challenge of redefining light and space in two dimensions, revealing the role of recent scientific discoveries, the changing landscape of Paris, and how audiences reacted to this seismic shift. The work of Manet, Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley, Caillebotte, Degas, Morisot, Seurat and others are given special attention, with generous, full-page illustrations of their masterpieces. Chronologically arranged, the book provides important biographical detail on the aritsts and describes historic events in the context of the latest scholarship. It also includes suggestions for further reading.

Part of a series of exciting and luxurious Flame Tree Notebooks. Combining high-quality production with magnificent fine art, the covers are printed on foil in five colours, embossed then foil stamped. And they're powerfully practical: a pocket at the back for receipts and scraps, two bookmarks and a solid magnetic side flap. These are perfect for personal use and make a dazzling gift. This example is based on 'Wheat Field with Cypresses' by Vincent van Gogh. Vincent Van Gogh composed this painting while he was in the Saint-Remy mental asylum, near Arles. The bold use of impasto and the beauty of the towering trees have made this one of his most recognisable works. There are various other versions of the painting, one of which features a closer view of the cypresses painted vertically, as well as a replica of this version that Van Gogh painted for his mother and sister.

It's well known that Claude Monet was a gourmand as well as an artistic genius. His culinary journals are filled with detailed recipes and notes about what he ate and with whom he shared his meals. Now, sixty of those recipes are gathered in this elegantly produced book brimming with the colors and flavors of Giverny, France. Each chapter features recipes that were served in Monet's famed yellow dining room, eaten al fresco in the gardens at Giverny, or at several of the fine restaurants along the Seine in Normandy. Beautiful reproductions of Monet's art compliment the recipes, along with photographs of the artist enjoying these dishes with his family, friends, and fellow artists. The recipes themselves, selected for their rustic appeal and use of only the freshest ingredients, range from simple galettes and hearty casseroles to fine souffle s, seafood dishes, and delicious tarts, cakes, and other pastries. A fitting tribute to the painter and his legendary aesthetic, this cookbook is the next best thing to sitting at Monet's table.

Tracing the arc of van Gogh's career, this volume presents his portraits and self-portraits, landscapes, and haunting interiors. Readers will learn details of van Gogh's complicated personal life including his struggles with mental illness and his close but difficult relationship with his brother, Theo. Also included here are an anthology of paintings, information on the museums where they reside, a timeline of the painter's personal and artistic highlights, and bibliography. Overflowing with impeccably reproduced images, this book offers full-page spreads of masterpieces as well as highlights of smaller details - allowing the viewer to appreciate every aspect of the artist's technique and oeuvre. Chronologically arranged, the book covers important biographical and historic events that reflect the latest scholarship. Additional information includes a list of works, timeline, and suggestions for further reading.

Celebrate the holidays with Christmas Carolers Square Boxed 1000 Piece Puzzle from Galison. Piece together to reveal a classic scene of friends and family charoling in the snow by Louise Cunningham. - Assembled puzzle size: 20 x 27'' - Box: 8 x 8 x 2.5'' - Contains informational insert about artist and image

Paul Gauguin achieved a high public profile during his lifetime, and was one of the first artists of his generation to achieve international recognition. But his prominence has always had as much to do with the dramatic events of his life - his self-imposed exile on a remote South Sea island, his turbulent relationships with his peers - as with the appeal of his art. Belinda Thomson gives a comprehensive and accessible account of the life and work of one of the most original artists of the late nineteenth century. Gauguin's work - painting, sculpture, prints and ceramics - is discussed in the light of his public persona, his relations with his contemporaries, his exhibitions and their critical reception. His private world, beliefs and aspirations are revealed through his extensive cache of journals, letters and other writings. Fully updated throughout, drawing on the insights of thirty years of scholarship since its first edition, Thomson's text remains the best introduction to this controversial and often contradictory artist.

Part of a series of exciting and luxurious Flame Tree Sketch Books Combining high-quality production with magnificent fine art, the covers are printed on foil in five colours, embossed, then foil stamped. The thick paper stock makes them perfect for sketching and drawing. These are perfect for personal use and make a dazzling gift. This example features Van Gogh: Cafe Terrace.

First published in 1984. The late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries represent not only era of rapidly changing artistic methods but a crucial evolution in art criticism. This book gathers together a wide-range of the criticism that greeted the work of the Impressionists artists in the English Press. The selected examples of praise and antagonism reflect the sentiments expressed in the comments of prominent newspaper and periodical critics. The selection shows the importance of Impressionist art to English art criticism and wide comprehension of the formal qualities in painting. It also demonstrates how forward-looking critics created new criteria for the discussion of modern painting.

Paul Cezanne challenged convention and pioneered new possibilities in painting. He was remarkable for his ability to perceive and paint aspects of everyday life in ways that revealed dynamic yet deeply harmonious visions of the world. But the intellectual and emotional difficulties of his achievements were considerable. Mainly self-taught, most of his career was plagued by rejection. The critics, and the public, disliked his paintings, and in 1884 Cezanne declared that Paris, the centre of the nineteenth-century art world, had defeated him. Repeatedly, he retreated into self-doubt and bad temper. This book follows Cezanne on his extraordinary artistic journey, focusing on his formative discoveries, made not in the flashy, fashionable metropolis of Paris but in provincial and rural France, often in isolation.

A vibrant, colourful and beautiful book that introduces readers to Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. It explains the difference between the two movements and the main artists associated with each. Illustrations are drawn from the renowned and outstanding collection of French art held by the National Galleries of Scotland and they include a number of rarely seen works. This book tells the fascinating stories of how key paintings and drawings found their way into the collection. Artists include Monet, Millet, Gauguin, Bastien-Lepage, Charles Jacque, Troyon, Corot, Degas, Seurat, Van Gogh, Cezanne, Vuillard, Bonnard, Derain, Matisse, Legros and Rodin.