Childe Hassam, American Impressionist (Metropolitan Museum of Art Series)
Category: Books,Arts & Photography,History & Criticism
Childe Hassam, American Impressionist (Metropolitan Museum of Art Series) Details
From Publishers Weekly Hassam's 50-year career is dutifully presented in this expansive catalogue. Direct influences on American Impressionist Hassam (1859–1935) include Dutch and British masters (Hassam disavowed Monet's influence, though Hassam "liberated his brushwork" in Paris), influences that mirror the painter's unfailing enthusiasm for his native country and its (and his) Anglo-Saxon forebears. Included among the 374 illustrations (244 in full color) are depictions of the urban environments Hassam cherished (Boston, New York City and Paris) as well as rose-colored, elegant views of the more rugged East Hampton and Maine. "It has been my life-long aim to retain the natural beauty and dignity of any fine old American community," Hassam wrote. His greatest achievement remains his mighty (and now iconic) flag series, and depictions of Fifth Avenue in its festooned post-WWI patriotism. The collection also includes an essay on Hassam's framing and marketing techniques, his ventures into other mediums, a checklist of works included in the exhibition and a chronology of his life, all of which contribute to a further contextualization, scholarly and popular, of this American Impressionist. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. Read more From Booklist Hassam (1859-1935) was the most zestful of the American impressionists, and Weinberg, a curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, along with her expert contributors, covers every facet of Hassam's life and work in this substantial, gorgeously illustrated volume. Although Hassam relished the fact that his name sounded Arabian, he was solidly Anglo-Saxon, and although he studied in Paris and traveled in Europe, as every serious painter of his generation did, he was all-American and deliberately painted upbeat scenes of the cushy lives of the privileged and fashionable. So lovely and vital are the watercolors, oils, and etchings created by this purveyor of "cheerful elitism and escapism," the astonishingly prolific Hassam became resoundingly successful, although he did develop a drinking problem and a vehement hatred of modern art. But there is no evidence of these dark forces in his shimmering paintings of Boston boulevards, the chic New York neighborhoods favored by Edith Wharton, and idyllic New England as Hassam's broad brushstrokes, "dramatic perspective," and vibrant colors cohere into works of unabashedly lush and timeless beauty. Donna SeamanCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved Read more See all Editorial Reviews
Reviews
This is a large, comprehensive book and may well deserve five stars. Ms. Weinberg's research and scholarship in putting this compendium together was exhaustive. It's as much a history of Hassam's life and artistic motivation as it is a very thorough collection of Hassam's work. I should "get over" my desire / need to have (what I consider to be) better photos in the art books I buy. I don't know if having higher resolution is even possible in art books (I assume they are produced with the highest possible graphics), but I always want the images to be a little more life-like, a little bit more like actually looking at the painting (within reason, of course). This book fell a little short in that regard .... hence the four stars. But it's a fine book and I am glad to have it.