Cezanne and the End of Impressionism: A Study of the Theory, Technique, and Critical Evaluation of Modern Art

Cezanne and the End of Impressionism: A Study of the Theory, Technique, and Critical Evaluation of Modern Art by Shiff, Richard. paperback edition. ISBN: 9780226753065.

Drawing on a broad foundation in the history of nineteenth-century French art, Richard Shiff offers an innovative interpretation of Cézannes painting. He shows how Cézannes style met the emerging criteria of a "technique of originality" and how it satisfied critics sympathetic to symbolism as well as to impressionism. Expanding his study of the interaction of Cézanne and his critics, Shiff considers the problem of modern art in general. He locates the core of modernism in a dialectic of making (technique) and finding (originality). Ultimately, Shiff provides not only clarifying accounts of impressionism and symbolism but of a modern classicism as well.