Paris_ The Collected Traveler - Barrie Kerper [193]
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.
FRENCH STYLES AND MOVEMENTS
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