The Painting of Modern Life

By T.J. Clark,

Book cover of The Painting of Modern Life: Paris in the Art of Manet and His Followers

Book description

The Paris of the 1860s and 1870s was supposedly a brand-new city, equipped with boulevards, cafes, parks, and suburban pleasure grounds--the birthplace of those habits of commerce and leisure that constitute "modern life." Questioning those who view Impressionism solely in terms of artistic technique, T. J. Clark describes the painting…

When you buy books, we may earn a commission that helps keep our lights on (or join the rebellion as a member).

Why read it?

1 author picked The Painting of Modern Life as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

After the literature of Paris, the painting of Paris. T. J. Clark’s The Painting of Modern Life studies the ways in which the artists he calls “painters of modern life” created canvases that attempted to focus attention on a subsequent transformation of Paris, in the nineteenth century. Clark considers the depictions by painters such as Manet, Degas, and Seurat of Paris as it evolved and of Parisians interacting with their changing city. The depictions of Parisians experiencing the boulevards, cafés, and parks of Paris that Clark analyzes are perhaps the greatest tradition ever of city painting. No one has ever…

If you love The Painting of Modern Life...

Ad

Book cover of The Bloomsbury Photographs

The Bloomsbury Photographs By Maggie Humm,

An enthralling portrait of the Bloomsbury Group’s key figures told through a rich collection of intimate photographs. Photography framed the world of the Bloomsbury Group. The thousands of photographs surviving in albums kept by Virginia Woolf, Vanessa Bell, Dora Carrington, and Lytton Strachey, among others, today offer us a private…

Want books like The Painting of Modern Life?

Our community of 12,000+ authors has personally recommended 100 books like The Painting of Modern Life.

Browse books like The Painting of Modern Life

Book cover of Court and Garden: From the French Hôtel to the City of Modern Architecture
Book cover of The Death and Life of Great American Cities
Book cover of The Seduction of Place: The History and Future of Cities

Share your top 3 reads of 2024!

And get a beautiful page showing off your 3 favorite reads.

1,588

readers submitted
so far, will you?

5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in painting, France, and Impressionism?

Painting 58 books
France 947 books
Impressionism 10 books