Renoir's Portraits: Impressions of an Age
Category: Books,Arts & Photography,History & Criticism
Renoir's Portraits: Impressions of an Age Details
Review The pleasure Bailey obviously takes in setting out in detail the life stories of Renoir's subjects--we learn of Mlle. Legrand's two marriages, her children, her jobs, etc.--reveals him as a traditionalist who believes that facts count. The reader will find no signs of the current preoccupation with "theory" (and, blessedly, none of its jargon), and little in the way of psychological or social interpretation. Bailey assumes that the more we know about Renoir's sitters the more we will understand his pictures; but he often fails even to try to relate this information to any perception of Renoir's brushwork, color, and composition. In most entries, it is true, the attentive reader will find evocative and gracefully written descriptive passages.... -- The New York Review of Books, Robert L. Herbert Read more
Reviews
Nice Renoir!