The Joy of Life
Subtitle: The Idyllic in French Art, circa 1900
Publisher: University of California Press
Published: October 7, 2002
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 376
ISBN-13: 9780520221826
Subjects: History of art & design styles: from c 1900 -; Painting & paintings; General; Art & Art Instruction; Art; Themes, motives; Painting, French; European; Art / General; 19th century; 20th century; France; Pastoral art
First sentence: Puvis de Chavannes was perhaps the most widely celebrated painter of idyll in France at the end of the century.
Description: "The Joy of Life investigates the significance of the idyllic in French painting from the early 1890s to World War I, considering a fascinating series of pastoral, mythic, and utopian landscapes. Responding to rapid artistic and social shifts in this period, French artists shaped a dreamlike imagery of mythic community, individual fantasy, and sensual joie de vivre in the midst of mass society.

This illustrated study focuses on three exemplary imaginings of idyll: Puvis de Chavannes's decoration for the Paris Hotel de Ville, L'ete, of 1891, Paul Signac's anarchist Au temps d'harmonie of 1895, and Henri Matisse's fauve Bonheur de vivre of 1905-6, each a monumental and ambitious work exhibited publicly in Paris.".

"Werth weaves together complex analyses of these paintings and others by Manet, Gauguin, Seurat, Cezanne, and less well known artists with a consideration of their critical reception, literary parallels, and the social and cultural milieu. She moves from artistic concerns with tradition and avant-gardism, decoration and social art, composition and figuration to contemporary debates over human origins and social organization."--BOOK JACKET.