The Painting of Modern Life: Paris in the Art of Manet and his Followers

About this book

The Paris of the 1860s and 1870s was supposedly a brand-new city equipped with boulevards cafs 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 of Manet Degas Seurat and others as an attempt to give form to that modernity and seek out its typical representatives--be they bar-maids boaters prostitutes sightseers or petits bourgeois lunching on the grass. The central question of The Painting of Modern Life is this: did modern painting as it came into being celebrate the consumer-oriented culture of the Paris of Napoleon III or open it to critical scrutiny? The revised edition of this classic book includes a new preface by the author.