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The French nineteenth-century woman painter Berthe Morisot was held by her contemporaries to be the 'quintessential Impressionist'. She was an influential member of the Impressionist group, whose exhibitions she organized with her colleagues Monet, Renoir, Pissarro and Degas. This book considers her work in the context of the artistic and social debates of the time. It discusses the meaning that Baudelaire's famous dictum to paint 'the heroism of modern life' had for a woman artist painting in the changing city of Paris -- a very different city from the Paris of her male colleagues. Copyright © Libri GmbH. All rights reserved.

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CHOICE Review

This book is instrumental in resolving the dilemmas that have long engulfed the artistic reputation of Berthe Morisot. Well known to even casual students of Impressionism, Morisot has also gained widespread recognition as a 19th-century woman artist who succeeded in a man's world alongside such luminaries as Manet, Degas, and Renoir. Unfortunately, although her name is familiar, meaningful commentary on her life and substantive criticism about her art are extremely rare. Adler and Garb are established scholars well equipped to generate a new appreciation for their subject. They set aside the strict chronological structure so common in such monographs in favor of a series of essays on issues central to Morisot's place in time. Rejecting the easy classifications of earlier critics, the authors stress the artist's identity as a woman of the French 19th-century upper-middle class. The result challenges the reader to reevaluate Morisot's art as well as her role in Impressionism. Well written and capably designed, the book features 49 excellent color pastels of Morisot's work and an equal number of black-and-white illustrations, more or less pertinent to the text. This is undoubtedly the best available source on the artist as can be easily ascertained by a quick comparison with J.D. Rey's Berthe Morisot (CH, Mar '83). A significant contribution to the literature of Impressionism and the record of women's role in art history.-J.A. Day, University of South Dakota