Manet, Monet, and the Gare Saint-Lazare

Rating:
Summary: Fresh perspective, rich documentation, but scattered
Review: In Paris of the 1860s, Baron Haussman decreed the Quartier de l'Europe. Centered around a vastly enlarged Saint-Lazare railroad station - the tracks of which were to run below a monumental bridge fed by six dramatically designed and expensively developed new streets - the neighborhood became a symbol of modernism. As such it attracted a palette of "progressive" painters: not only did Manet and Monet have studios there and produce great canvases inspired by its masses, perspectives, light, and air; so, too, did the academically trained essentialist Caillebotte, who supported his avant-garde friends' work with his own inherited wealth. This richly documented catalogue (for a 1998 exhibit at the Musée d'Orsay and the National Gallery of Washington) supplements an awkwardly organized narrative with maps, photographs, and reproductions that frequently (but not invariably) do justice to the great paintings. (Why, for instance, is Caillebotte's "Paris Street, Rainy Day" shown in monochrome?) The volume also introduces the reader to fine, minor impressionists like Norbert Goeneutte and a precursor of surrealism, Jean Béraud, who combined quasi-photographic effects with collage to suggest a world of dream. All in all, a useful contribution to the cultural study of art