From Publishers Weekly
This exemplary exhibition catalogue, published in conjunction with a major international Cezanne retrospective, is a handsome tribute to the artist who revolutionized modern painting. The 258 color and 350 black-and-white reproductions of Cezanne's (1839-1906) oil paintings, watercolors, drawings and sketchbook pages are splendid, and they are accompanied by lucid, insightful com- mentaries, authoritative yet refreshingly devoid of scholarly pretension. Many of the painter's own statements on art are included, as are excerpts from the writings of critics and art historians who have assessed his work from 1865 to the present. There is also an extensive chronology of the artist's life. Cachin is president of the National Museums of France; Cahn is archivist of the Musee d'Orsay in Paris; Loyrette is director of the Musee d'Orsay and Rishel is senior curator of European painting before 1900 at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. BOMC selection.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
You may hesitate, as we did, at the sight of yet another book about Cezanne, but this handsomely produced retrospective volume is without question the grandest of them all. The superb reproductions (258 in the best color and crispest focus this reviewer has ever seen and 350 in rich black-and-white) document the artist's entire revolutionary oeuvre, from his earliest pencil drawings to his watercolors, sketchbooks, and magnificent paintings. The commentary, based on meticulous research by Cachin--curator, scholar, and president of the National Museums of France--and her esteemed colleagues, is of the highest order, penetrating and illuminating in its interpretations of the man, his work, and his enormous influence on modern art.
Donna Seaman