This is a great artist's amazingly beautiful garden. And the photographs are not just pretty pictures of flowers, but are full of emotion.

Stephen Shore's The Gardens At Giverny: A View Of Monet's World is a breathtakingly beautiful compendium of forty four-color photographs inspired by the paintings and subject matter of Claude Monet and a celebration of the restoration of the gardens at Giverny, Paris. Here are sumptuous images reflecting the many moods and textures of an inspired and inspiring landscape. A superbly presented work of landscape photography as art, The Gardens At Giverny is also available in hardcover (0-893781-113-0, $40.00) which would be the preferred recommendation for academic and community library photography book collections.

camille pissarro gets much less notice than many of his contemporaries -- renoir, monet, degas, cezanne, van gogh, sisley -- yet in many ways he's the most interesting and innovative of the lot. born and raised in the caribbean, he emigrated to france as a young adult and worked as a productive (though often near impoverished) artist for five decades. in that time many painting fashions came and went, yet pissarro was often at the forefront of them all. one of the founding impressionists, his paintings were early on more radical than other painters working at the time (his artistic convictions cost him dearly in market success); he befriended and mentored the likes of cezanne, gauguin, signac; he was among the first to apply the science of color vision to his painting, and with much more care and insight than the mechanical dotmaking of the neo-impressionists. his influence was vital to the development of 19th century painting and is brought to life in this well written and comprehensive survey. the many full page color reproductions of his beautiful, sensitive, skillful and continually evolving paintings show the depth of his artistic sentiment and insight. pissarro is a painter who looks better in the perspective of time, and this handsome study does him full justice.

This is a wonderful book about Cezanne. Every artist who is studying art history and esp. the impressionists and post-impressionists should own this book.

I have read many books on Cezanne over the past 10 years and in my opinion this is the best. For a combination of well-written text and excellent reproductions of the paintings this book cannot be beat. The text is jargon free. Mr. Rewald was a wonderful writer and he gives you a warm and sympathetic biography of a great artist and complex and difficult man. Cezanne was very neurotic. He had a fear of women and would not use nude models. His famous bather series was worked up from photographs and plaster casts, etc. He could be very anti-social: he sometimes would cross the street to avoid meeting someone he knew. He was very emotional and struggled to keep his emotions under control. This was reflected in his work. His early work was full of violence and shadows and you feel as though he barely was able to keep himself in check as he coated the canvas in a thick impasto. The later, carefully controlled and beautifully harmonized works are the more familiar to the general public. The cover gives you some indication of the beautiful reproductions which are inside this book. This is a great addition and in my opinion a must have for anyone's art library.

I really enjoyed this wonderful book about a wonderfully delightful artist. I would recommend reading it if you are a Cezanne admirer, absolutely a wonderful book!

First, this review is of the 1990 edition by Alan Wofsy Fine Arts, which is a revision of the 1944 and 1956 editions. As I have not seen the earlier editions, I cannot comment on whether the differences warrant purchasing the new volume rather than locating an older edition on the used market. Perhaps this review will provide a basis for someone with one of the earlier editions to clarify this in a subsequent review.

The central element of the book is the black and white catalogue of the 74 extent pieces of Degas's sculpture. Although Degas only exhibited one piece of sculpture in his lifetime (the famous 'Little fourteen year old dancer' at the exhibition of the impressionists in 1881), about 150 pieces of deteriorating sculpture in wax or plaster casts were found in his studio after his death. Only about 70 of these could be salvaged for casting in bronze. Between 1919-1921, 20 sets of 72 pieces were produced for sale. In addition, two extra sets were made for the founder and Degas's heirs and were not intended for sale. A complete set of the bronzes was exhibited for the first time in 1921 with the 'Little fourteen year old dancer', which was not cast until later, exhibited in the original. Subsequently, the original wax models (long thought to have been destroyed in casting, but saved through an innovative approach to the lost wax method by the founder) were discover along with a 23rd set of bronzes. The 74th piece was cast at a much later date in a limited edition.

Rewald's catalogue organizes the pieces thematically within three major chronological groupings. The collection contains 1 early bas-relief, 15 horses, 2 jockeys, 38 dancers, 15 bathers/female figures, and 3 heads/busts. Two pages are devoted to each piece (except in the case of the two jockeys, which are shown mounted on horses). In each case, one of the pages has a full-page photo of the original model (usually in wax), and the other has a full-page photo of the bronze cast of the piece. In most cases, these are the same view of the piece. This was the most disappointing limitation of the volume for me, as it makes it difficult to appreciate the pieces in the round and experience the full sense of movement and volume that are so important to these works. Furthermore, the pictures seem to be very old (perhaps some are reprinted from old exhibition catalogues rather then specially prepared for this volume). For a catalogue raisonne, however, the quality of the pictures is good (and quite large), and in the case of at least 30 pieces the cast and model are shown from opposite sides or slightly rotated perspectives. Eight of the pieces are also given full-color plates.

The catalogue is preceded by a 25-page introduction written by John Rewald and dated 1976, but it seems to have been pieced together from previous publications and exhibition catalogues. In my opinion, this introduction is lacking. To begin with, I find it speculative, anecdotal and not particularly well documented for the 'research' it purports to be based on. The focus throughout is on Degas development in terms of the subjects he produced and his general approach to them, but there is very little discussion of the individual works or how these general ideas relate to them. Important concepts in Degas art, such as his "seeking mass in movement" are mentioned in passing, but no attempt is made to illustrate them with reference to particular pieces or gestures. The only specific work which is discussed in any detail is the 'little dancer' mentioned above. Ironically, this is the piece that most any book on will have a couple of pages devoted to.

Following the catalogue, 5 reference tools are provided: (1) comparative tables of the exhibition, bronze and catalogue numbers of each of the sculptures, (2) a chronological bibliography of the 65 published works between 1881 and 1988 which Rewald claims are exclusively devoted to, contain important information on, or reproductions of, the Degas's sculpture, (3) an chronology of the exhibitions of the sculpture from 1921 to 1976, (4) a chronological index of the sculpture, (5) English and French indexes of sculptures by title.

Although there are limitations to this volume which could have been remedied in a revised edition of this price, I am glad that I own my copy. It provides a good overview of the extent sculpture and serves as a decent reference work. I would recommend it for those who have the cash to spare.

If you have a great love for Impressionist painting and want to know about the artists and the people that surrounded them you will enjoy this book. Mr. Rewald had previously written very in-depth books concerning the histories of Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. This book is a collection of essays concerning the Impressionists and does repeat some of the information contained in Rewald's "History Of Impressionism" but also gives a more detailed look at some topics in that book, such as Cezanne's relationship with his father and his friendships with the collector Victor Chocquet and with his fellow (and pretty much unknown) artist Achille Emperaire. There is also an essay about Paul Durand-Ruel, the dealer who stuck with the Impressionists through the early years when you basically couldn't even give their stuff away and there is a short essay about the oldest (and least well-known) Impressionist, Camille Pissarro. Pissarro pretty much lived a life of poverty until he was in his 60's but had a very fulfilling artistic and personal life (he was happily married and had many children) and his modesty and easygoing personality enabled him to get along with his fellow artists and even to be somewhat of a mentor to the notoriously difficult Cezanne. I would say that this book is not for the person who is going in with no previous knowledge of the artists and the movement, but if you already know a bit and want to learn more or if you have read other books by Mr. Rewald you will not be disappointed. For those of you who are new to Mr. Rewald I think you will enjoy his style of writing. He writes with the descriptive flair of a novelist and he does not use art-world graduate school style jargon. If you really want to immerse yourself in the world of these great artists I would suggest you also check out Mr. Rewald's "History Of Impressionism" and his excellent biography of Cezanne.