As much as I enjoyed the many art history classes I took in college and the many art museums I continue to visit, I find in many cases that even more interesting than the lives of artists of years ago are those of the dealers that represented them. When you see a painting in a museum, for example, there is usually a brief description of the work that includes the date it was completed and perhaps a lengthier story about it. But visitors are not typically informed of the work’s provenance—who has owned it over the years since it was painted and how it came to be in the museum’s collection. I am utterly fascinated with the provenance of artworks, and dealers are of course a big part of an artwork’s journey. Just a few reads about legendary dealers are:
An Artful Life: A Biography of D. H. Kahnweiler, 1884–1979, Pierre Assouline (Grove/Atlantic, 1990). Daniel-Heinrich Kahnweiler formed the Bernheim-Jeune Gallery in Paris and represented, among others, Picasso, Braque, André Derain, and Maurice de Vlaminck. The twentieth century had more than one great art dealer, Assouline notes, “but of all those from Kahnweiler’s generation who launched themselves on this adventure, he remains the only one whose name is inseparable from a decisive moment in modern art, the ‘epic’ of Cubism. The most important painters are indebted to this man, the greatest art dealer of his day.”
Cézanne to Picasso: Ambroise Vollard, Patron of the Avant-Garde, edited by Rebecca Rainbow and published in conjunction with an exhibit of the same name at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, and the Musée d’Orsay (Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2006). Vollard (1866–1939), according to Philippe de Montebello in the foreword, “was without question the most influential art dealer in Paris at the turn of the twentieth century.” Vollard is also particularly interesting because he was an author and a publisher.
Art Treasures of the Louvre: One Hundred Reproductions in Full Color, René Huyghe with Milton Fox (Abrams, 1951). This is a volume in the Library of Great Museums series, which I love. While not meant to be comprehensive, it’s a special, selective collection of a variety of objects found at the Louvre. Though out of print, this and other editions in the series are readily found online and in used-book stores.
Artists in Residence: A Guide to the Homes and Studios of Eight 19th-Century Artists In and Around Paris, Dana Micucci with photographs by Marina Faust (Little Bookroom, 2001). This wonderful, must-have book comes in its own slipcase, but as it’s a slender paperback it can easily be packed and brought along. Micucci notes that to explore artists’ homes and studios is “to feel magically part of their history.… By visiting their homes, it is our privilege to meet them on terrain that nourishes a personal connection far beyond that afforded by an art museum.” In addition to the very informative summaries of each artist’s residence, Micucci has provided visitor information and suggestions for dining, accommodations, and short excursions.
A Fuller Understanding of the Paintings at Orsay, Françoise Bayle (Artlys, 2001). This great book, available at the Musée d’Orsay, is one of the best of its kind and I wish I had one just like it for about fifty other museums around the world. As Bayle states in the foreword, this publication “is not merely one more among the already numerous books” on the d’Orsay. “It takes a truly different, dual approach. It is a genuine guide that proposes both chronological pages and theme-based comparisons where the eyes of the various painters meet, sometimes glaringly.”
Knopf Guides: The Louvre (Knopf, 1995). This book is a little heavy, so it might not be a good candidate to bring along, but I definitely recommend taking a look at it before you depart. Sections include “The Louvre through Visitors’ Eyes” and “Origin of the Name Louvre” as well as many on the museum’s collections, which have made it the largest museum in the world. Useful chapters also include possible itineraries, maps, and other practical information such as tours, lectures, activities, shopping, and family-oriented options.
Little-Known Museums in and Around Paris, Rachel Kaplan (Harry N. Abrams, 1996). If you are a museumgoer, you’ll want and need this handy book. Some of the museums featured really are little known (and deserve to be better known) and the summaries are thorough and interesting. More than thirty museums—including six just outside of Paris, such as the wonderful Musée National de la Renaissance (Château d’Ecouen) and the Château de Monte Cristo—are highlighted and accompanied by ample color photographs.
Paintings in the Louvre, Lawrence Gowing (1994) and Paintings in the Musée d’Orsay, Robert Rosenblum (1989), both published by Stewart, Tabori & Chang. These gigantic companion volumes have no rivals when it comes to viewing the museums’ paintings in a single volume.
There are of course dozens, if not hundreds, of resources for general art surveys, so I’ll just share with you some of my favorites. I have consulted all of these below on many occasions.
Angels A to Z: A Who’s Who of the Heavenly Host, Matthew Bunson (Three Rivers, 1996). This is a fascinating and useful reference you’ll be glad to have, and it includes entries from Abaddon to Zutu’el with numerous black-and-white reproductions. Bunson gives several reasons for the popularity of angels, and explains, “Perhaps most important, throughout history one thought has proven powerfully constant and nearly universally accepted by Jewish writers, Christian saints, Muslim scholars, and followers of the New Age: The angel is one of the most beautiful expressions of the concern of God for all of his creations, an idea beautifully expressed by Tobias Palmer in An Angel in My House: ‘The very presence of an angel is a communication. Even when an angel crosses our path in silence, God has said to us, “I am here. I am present in your life.’ ”
Gods and Heroes in Art, Lucia Impelluso (2003), and Symbols and Allegories in Art, Matilde Battistini (2005), both published by Getty. These two editions in the Guide to Imagery series have color reproductions throughout and note literary sources. I consider them to be essential.
Janson’s Basic History of Western Art (Prentice Hall, 2008, eighth edition). Janson’s was known for many years on every college and university campus and is still a classic for your home library. The original author, Horst W. Janson, passed away in 1982; his son Anthony took over authorship until 2004, and the book now has a new team of authors. There is also a volume for younger readers that is equally worthy.
The Museum Companion: Understanding Western Art, Marcus Lodwick (Harry N. Abrams, 2003). This portable volume is a guide to the biblical and classical subjects found in Western art masterpieces. Entries are alphabetical by name.
The Story of Art, E. H. Gombrich (Phaidon, 1995, sixteenth edition). Although Sir Ernst Gombrich has authored numerous volumes on art, this is the one that really established his reputation. To quote from the jacket, “The Story of Art is one of the most famous and popular books on art ever published.… It has remained unrivalled as an introduction to the whole subject.” Though a comprehensive book, French artists and those who worked in France are well represented.
What Great Paintings Say, Rose-Marie Hagen and Rainer Hagen (Taschen, in three volumes). Taken from articles originally written for the magazine Art published in Hamburg, Germany, these books are gems. The author team doesn’t present overviews of schools or periods of art history; rather, each painting is introduced separately, almost as if no other existed. “Pictures are windows,” they believe, and “pictures offer adventure.… Those who return from a successful journey into a picture are enriched by the experience.” A great number of works by French artists are included throughout.
The Barbizon School and the Origins of Impressionism, Steven Adams (Phaidon, 1994). An important work highlighting some of the still relatively unknown painters who greatly influenced the Impressionists: Charles-Émile Jacque, Théodore Rousseau, Narcisse Díaz de la Peña, and Georges Michel, followed by Corot, Courbet, Daubigny, and Millet. These landscape painters had been going to Barbizon, a small village on the edge of the Forêt de Fontainebleau, where they forged a path for the movement nearly fifty years before the word Impressionniste was first uttered in Paris.
Dada: Zurich, Berlin, Hannover, Cologne, New York, Paris (National Gallery of Art, 2008). Published to accompany an exhibit of the same name, this is a definitive and leading work that highlights the cities in which the Dada movement excelled. Forty artists are covered, including André Breton, Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray, Tristan Tzara, and Kurt Schwitters.
French Art: Prehistory to the Middle Ages (1994), The Renaissance, 1430–1620 (1995), and The Ancien Régime: 1620–1775 (1996), all by André Chastel and published by Flammarion. Chastel was adviser to André Malraux, founder of the French Inventory of Historical Monuments, editor of the prestigious Revue de l’art et de l’archéologie, and a professor at the Sorbonne and the Collège de France. With more than four hundred exquisite color illustrations, these are simply the most detailed and most beautiful books on these periods of French art, unmatched in their thoroughness.
The History of Impressionism (1946) and Post-Impressionism: From Van Gogh to Gauguin (1956), both by John Rewald and published by the Museum of Modern Art. Rewald’s first book was published to universal acclaim, and he spent the rest of his life revising it in five subsequent editions. Post-Impressionism is widely acclaimed as well.
History of the Surrealist Movement, Gérard Durozoi (University of Chicago Press, 2002). This work is astounding in its depth and range, covering the years from 1919 to 1969, the year André Breton died, seen as the end of the movement.
The Judgement of Paris: The Revolutionary Decade That Gave the World Impressionism, Ross King (Walker, 2006). Fans of King’s Brunelleschi’s Dome will also like this in-depth look at the decade between the Salon des Refusés in 1863 and the first Impressionist exhibit in 1874. Though a number of artists are highlighted in this book, two in particular merit the most attention: Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier and Édouard Manet. King writes, “to overstate either Meissonier’s reputation or his fortune would have been difficult in the year 1863.” Meissonier’s signature was said to be worth that of the Bank of France. Delacroix declared him “the incontestable master of our epoch,” Alexandre Dumas fils called him “the painter of France,” and a newspaper referred to him as “the most renowned artist of our time.” But for all his renown and wealth, Meissonier was stuck in the eighteenth century, where he vastly preferred to be: Manet was about as opposite from Meissonier as imaginable. Though he, too, painted from the Old Masters in the Louvre and the Uffizi in Florence, with canvases such as The Absinthe Drinker and Le Bain he began to portray scenes of modern life. “More than a century after their deaths,” writes King, “Meissonier gathers dust in museum storerooms” while Manet maintains his stature among the greats. A fascinating look not only at the art world of the time but at France, especially Paris, during a time of immense change and progress.
Antoine’s Alphabet: Watteau and His World, Jed Perl (Knopf, 2008). I love this little book because in many ways it reminds me of the A to Z Miscellany that appears in every volume of The Collected Traveler. Art critic Jed Perl covers items as varied as capriccio, fans, flirtation, London, Gérard de Nerval, and New York City, as well as ornament, party, qualities, religion, and youth, linking painter Jean-Antoine Watteau to each one. Perl brilliantly conveys how influential Watteau (1684–1721) was to numerous painters and writers, and “reaffirms the contemporary relevance of the greatest of all painters of young love and imperishable dreams.” After I read this I had a burning desire to stand in front of Watteau’s Gersaint’s Shopsign (in Charlottenburg Palace, Berlin) and The Holy Family (in the Hermitage in Saint Petersburg), neither of which I’ve managed to see yet, unfortunately. I also had a renewed interest in The Pilgrimage to the Isle of Cythera in the Louvre (see “Paint the Town,” this page). It took five years for Watteau to complete this magnificent painting, which he submitted to the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture as his reception piece. With this work he became known as the painter of fêtes galantes, which translates as “gallant parties” and refers to the pursuits of the wealthy that Watteau portrayed so well. The Greek island of Cythera, birthplace of Aphrodite, goddess of love, is the subject of a debate over whether the lovers in the painting are about to set sail for the island or if they are returning. The Louvre’s interpretative text panel notes that “without doubt, the mysterious hazy landscape in the distance is one of the most innovative features of the painting, reflecting the influence of the landscapes of Rubens and Leonardo da Vinci.”
The Artist in His Studio, Alexander Liberman (Random House, 1988). This unique book is a splendid record of Liberman’s visits to a number of artists—thirty-one of them, nearly all of whom were French or worked in France—in the 1940s after the war. He felt compelled to personally meet these artists and take photos in their studios because he feared, if he didn’t, there would be no trace of the remarkable flowering of painting and sculpture the first half of the twentieth century had witnessed. No doubt he was also moved to do so by World War II’s annihilation and destruction. Color and black-and-white photographs are paired with the text of Liberman’s conversations with each artist.
The Banquet Years: The Origins of the Avant-Garde in France, 1885 to World War I, Roger Shattuck (Vintage, 1968). An original and thoroughly fascinating book linking playwright Alfred Jarry, painter Henri Rousseau, musician Erik Satie, and poet Guillaume Apollinaire as a group of artists representing significant aspects of la Belle Époque, or as he refers to it, “the Banquet Years.” Shattuck believes that this group best reveals the period, and in this book he explores how the avant-garde took the arts into a period of “astonishingly varied renewal and accomplishment,” which would change after the First World War.
Baudelaire’s Voyages: The Poet and His Painters, Jeffrey Coven (Bulfinch, 1993). Companion volume to an exhibit of the same name mounted at the Heckscher Museum (Huntington, New York) and the Archer M. Huntington Gallery (University of Texas Austin), this is a unique package that allows for reading Baudelaire’s poetry and viewing the art of his contemporaries together. It’s the only time I’ve ever seen, for example, Matisse’s Luxe, calme et volupté side by side with Baudelaire’s “L’invitation au voyage.” With sixty-five color and forty-nine black-and-white reproductions featuring Manet, Seurat, Rodin, Gauguin, Daumier, Delacroix, Jongkind, Goya, Munch, Whistler, and others.
Pleasures of Paris: Daumier to Picasso, Barbara Stern Shapiro (Museum of Fine Arts, Boston/David R. Godine, 1991). Published to accompany an exhibit of the same name, which was organized to investigate the second half of the nineteenth century in Paris, famous as a time of frivolity and pleasure. But it was also a time of social injustice and political and military upheaval. The works of art included—by Manet, Daumier, Tissot, Toulouse-Lautrec, Degas, Renoir, Mucha, Vuillard, Cézanne, Pissarro, Bonnard, Picasso, and others—document both the more pleasant aspects of the period as well as some of its harsher realities.
Portrait of Dr. Gachet: The Story of a Van Gogh Masterpiece, Money, Politics, Collectors, Greed, and Loss, Cynthia Saltzman (Viking, 1998). A remarkable tale tracking the journey of one very famous painting and taking us behind the scenes of the art world and market. Although Portrait of Dr. Gachet is not the only work of art to have an interesting and many layered provenance, surely it has one of the most complex. The Portrait that hangs in the Musée d’Orsay, is not, as you might expect, the subject of this book. Van Gogh’s usual practice was to paint two versions of his portraits, and as the title of the book suggests, one copy has seen quite a life of its own. The Dr. Gachet canvas at the center of this book was sold from the artist’s estate in 1897, found homes with thirteen owners (one of whom was Hermann Göring, who had it for a brief time in 1938), and was eventually bought at auction in 1990 by Ryoei Saito of Tokyo for $82.5 million, the highest price ever paid at auction for a work of art to that point. Postcript: in August 1999, it was revealed that Portrait of Dr. Gachet had left Japan and may have been sold to an American investor.
If there are hundreds of books published on general art surveys, there are thousands published on individual artists, and so very many of them are devoted to French artists. Due to the monumental volume of works, I can be of most help here by alerting you to particular series that are devoted to single artists. You may then easily research which artists you’re most interested in, whether stepping into the shallow end of the pool by dabbling here and there or taking a plunge into the deep end, searching for more authoritative volumes. The point, after all, is to inspire you to turn a few pages of art books “to become reacquainted with names other than those of the luminous giants,” to quote Kate Simon in Italy: The Places in Between.
Discoveries (Harry N. Abrams). Originally published in France by Gallimard, these colorful paperbacks are a terrific value. They’re jammed with information, the quality of the reproductions is good, they’re lightweight and easy to pack (approximately five by seven inches), and the price is right. Discoveries books offer a fairly detailed overview and there are more than one hundred titles in the series, many devoted to French art and artists.
Masters of Art (Harry N. Abrams). The Masters of Art series, with more than fifty titles, is great for readers who want a little more than Discoveries but not huge coffee-table tomes. Not all titles are still in print, but copies are generally available online. Note generally that Abrams, an early leader in the publication and distribution of art and illustrated books, has a number of quite comprehensive and scholarly titles, and readers who are serious about particular artists should browse its complete title list online (abramsbooks.com).
Pegasus Library (Prestel). Pegasus books are mostly hardcover and all beautifully produced. They’re a little more scholarly than others and tend to have focused themes, such as Edgar Degas: Dancers and Nudes, Renoir: Paris and the Belle Époque, and Picasso’s World of Children.
The Raft of the Medusa
In the winter of 1818, the Romantic painter Théodore Géricault began work on a large canvas (about twenty-three feet wide and sixteen feet high) that depicted what had by then become a thorn in the side of Louis XVIII and what remains today one of the uglier events in French history. After Napoléon was defeated at Waterloo, the British offered the new French king the port of Saint-Louis, on the coast of Senegal, considered to be an important trading post. A fleet of four ships was readied to take the new French governor of Senegal, Julien Schmaltz, and others—settlers, scientists, and some soldiers who had previously fought for Napoléon—to the port. The ships were the Loire, the Argus, the Echo, and lastly the Medusa, which was filled with nearly four hundred men, women, and children, including Schmaltz. The man appointed to lead this flotilla, Hugues Duroy de Chaumareys, had joined the English in the war against the revolutionaries in France and was awarded the post for his loyalty to the crown. He was, by all accounts, little prepared for this journey.
The Medusa proved to be the fastest ship, but it ran aground on July 2, 1816, on the Arguin Bank, off the coast of Senegal. Schmaltz suggested that they build lifeboats to transfer everyone to shore, but what transpired instead was that most of the “important” people were put on lifeboats, while almost everyone else (excepting those who elected to stay with the Medusa) was put on a crudely constructed raft. As the raft was so heavily overloaded and would overtake the lifeboats if it came close enough, De Chaumareys ordered that it be cut loose. What happened next was nothing short of a nightmare. “Horror after horror ensued,” Albert Alhadeff recounts in his excellent book The Raft of the Medusa: Géricault, Art, and Race (Prestel, 2002). “When they were rescued thirteen days later, the raft was littered with human flesh, limbs of their fellow mariners waiting to be devoured.”
Two survivors, Henri Savigny and Alexandre Corréard, both of whom appear in Géricault’s painting next to the mast with the torn sail, wrote Naufrage de la frégate la Méduse, which was published in November 1817, followed by an English translation, A Voyage to Senegal. Géricault was riveted by the story. He compiled a “véritable dossier” on the Medusa, “crammed with authentic papers, with documents of all sorts,” noted his biographer, Charles Clément. Géricault studied the contents of this file with the greatest care, with “the persistence and minutiae a judge would apply to his docket”; he re-created the story on canvas, which was then exhibited at the Paris Salon on August 25, 1819.
The work created a national embarrassment for the Bourbon dynasty, as Captain de Chaumareys was seen as being associated with the monarchy. French historian Jules Michelet, Alhadeff explains, “saw represented in the painting ‘the shipwreck of France.’ ” In Michelet’s words: “It is France itself, it is our whole society that he put to sea on the raft of the Medusa.” After the stir caused by the painting, France ultimately reconsidered its involvement in the slave trade, and Schmaltz was dismissed in the summer of 1820.
The Raft of the Medusa, now in the Louvre, is on my short list of the world’s most impressive paintings. If you visit the Père-Lachaise cemetery, you’ll also find a relief of the painting on Géricault’s tombstone. It was his magisterial work, largely synonymous with his name. Interestingly, Alhadeff notes that in 1997 the École Normale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts mounted an exhibition that included not only its numerous Géricault prints and drawings, but also a gigantic reconstruction of the raft. The replica rose more than two stories high and measured eight meters wide. This work was both a tribute to Géricault and a memorial to those lost in the tragedy.
French Gardens: A Guide, Barbara Abbs with photographs by Deirdre Hall (Sagapress, 1994). The author divides this book geographically into four sections: north, the Paris region, the center, and the south; there are forty-one garden and park listings for Paris and the Île-de-France. Each entry includes directions with easy reference to the Michelin road atlas. Many private gardens are open to the public in June and sometimes during the first weekend of the month. These events—known as journées des portes d’ouvertes—are worth seeking out at local tourist offices or by using specific Web searches. Additionally, a day (or two) in September is reserved for the Fête des Jardins de Paris, allowing the public to access secluded gardens in the city that are normally closed.
The Garden Lover’s Guide to France, Patrick Taylor (Princeton Architectural Press, 1998). This book is undoubtedly a prettier package than French Gardens just above—the color photographs help present the beauty and unique highlights of the more than one hundred private and public gardens featured—though I don’t find it as detailed. Taylor has organized the gardens by five regions covering all of France, and Paris and the Île-de-France are well represented. A serviceable map is found at each chapter opener, and there is a glossary of French garden terms at the back of the book.
Notre-Dame of Paris: The Biography of a Cathedral, Allan Temko (Viking, 1952). “The road—every road—has led to this moment and this place. Paris in the thirteenth century was one of the main stopping points in history, like Athens in the fifth century before Christ, and Byzantium in the sixth century after. Each had a social and political lesson for the world; each made the world a gift of architecture: the Parthenon, Sancta Sophia, the western façade of Notre-Dame.” So opens one chapter in the most definitive book ever written on Paris’s most famous cathedral. With black-and-white photographs, a foldout of the cathedral’s plan, cross sections, and a great bibliography.
Doubtless you have your own Paris. It’s not geographical; it’s the place where life first came vividly to bloom for you, where you couldn’t believe the exquisite beauty of the buildings, or the clouds, or the sun that shone after the rain.
—Don George, “Paris on My Mind”
