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The Painting of Modern Life: Paris in the Art of Manet and His Followers
The Painting of Modern Life Paris in the Art of Manet and His Followers Author:T. J. Clark 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... more » 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.« less