From Corot to Monet: The Ecology of Impressionism

Through 170 works, this catalog analyzes the relationship betweenImpressionism and nature from an innovative angle. From Corot to Monetanalyses the relationship between Impressionism and Nature from an originaland innovative angle. For the first time, the Impressionists not onlyvisually recorded the impact of modernity on the French landscape, but theyalso embraced a new holistic viewpoint which revealed the dynamism andcondition of every social and natural system. More than 170 works arereproduced, including paintings, works on paper and period photographs,which come from some of the most important museums, galleries and privatecollections throughout the world (including the Art Institute of Chicago,the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the New York Public Library,the National Gallery of Art and the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington,the Museae Marmottan and the Bibliothčque nationale de France in Paris, theHamburger Kunsthalle and the State Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg).The works trace the development of the representation of nature in Frenchnineteenth-century painting, beginning with the early innovations toclassic norms brought about by painters of the Barbizon school, followed bya thorough exploration of the revolution caused by the great masters ofImpressionism such as Monet, Sisley and Pissarro, and ending with thechromatic triumph of Monet's Waterlilies.