How photography served as both source and foil for the birth of impressionism From the first announcement in 1839 of the daguerreotype process at a joint meeting of the French Academy of Sciences and the Académie des Beaux-Arts, photography found itself suspended uneasily between science and the arts, a new technology that offered previously unimaginable possibilities for pictorial representation. While photography's capacity for naturalistic reproduction threatened one traditional function of painting, the camera's artificial eye could offer new models for looking at the world. In the work of pioneering photographers such as Gustave Le Gray, Eugène Cuvelier, Nadar, Atget and André-Adolphe-Eugène Disdéri, impressionist artists such as Manet, Corot, Monet, Pissarro and Degas found new ways of seeing. The key position that photography now occupies in contemporary art has encouraged a renewed interest in photography's historical relationship to the other visual arts. The Impressionists and Photographypursues this line of research. Luxuriously produced and lavishly illustrated, this volume reexamines the lively debate that photography's emergence generated among critics and artists, and offers a critical reflection on the affinities and mutual influences between photography and painting in France in the second half of the 19th century.

The Life and Works art series collects the world's greatest artists and art movements into a handsome set of monographs Each book features a biography of an artist or an explanation of the movement, followed by 50 magnificent, individually commentated reproductions Each is an affordable treasure, sure to please every seasoned critic and newcomer to the beauty of great art.

The impressionists were born in the horse-and- buggy era but lived during the Industrial Revolution, a time -- like today -- of constant technological change. The Impressionist Art Book brings this period to life through dramatic, full-color photos of the art of such masters as Monet, Renoir, and Degas. A lively text explores photography's influence in changing the way impressionists painted and memorable quotes including Monet's statement "I want to paint the way a bird sings".

In this innovative approach to Impressionism and its methods, Jonathan Stephenson's instruction enables amateurs the world over to paint like the Impressionists. Vibrantly illustrated in colour throughout, both with well-known works of art and step-by-step examples, the book shows how the masters achieved their diverse effects and how their ideas and styles can be adapted to today's tastes. Sections on the artists provide fascinating insights into individual techniques: learn how Monet produced his oil colour sketches, or how Sisley created his atmospheric landscapes. With an introduction providing the historical background to Impressionism, and a comprehensive section on artists' materials, this is a highly practical book that will appeal both to beginners and more experienced artists, as well as to the many thousands of of people inspired by the brilliance and beauty of Impressionist painting.

The examples convey not only these major themes but also the painters' belief in the progress of civilization through science and industry. The book thus expands the scope of Impressionist celebrations of modernity to include what might be called Impressionism's "other landscape" and proposes that in the Impressionists' effort to forge a modern landscape art, those signs of modernity defined their vision most clearly."--BOOK JACKET.

This lavishly illustrated volume looks at the myriad ways in which the burgeoning art of photography dialogued with Impressionist painting. In the 19th century, numerous photographers chose the same motifs as Impressionist painters: the forest of Fontainebleau, the cliffs of Étretat or the modern metropolis of Paris. They, too, studied the changing light, seasons and weather conditions. From its inception, photographers pursued artistic ambitions, as evidenced by their experimentation with composition and perspective, by means of various technical procedures. Until the First World War, the relationship between photography and painting was characterized both by competition and mutual influence. The exhibition and catalogue examine these interactions and illuminate the development of the new medium from the 1850s to its establishment as an autonomous art form around 1900. With contributions by: Dominique De Font-Réaulx, Monika Faber, Matthias Krüger, Ulrich Pohlmann, Esther Ruelfs, Helene Von Saldern, Bernd Stiegler, and Daniel Zamani.