The Intimate Landscape: A New Look at the Origins of the American Barbizon Movement

Rating:
Summary: Excellent brief survey of the Barbizon movement
Review: "The Intimate Landscape" is a detailed look at the Barbizon School of art. Barbizon art was mainly landscape paintings from which impressionism eventually sprang. After a brief introduction on the Barbizon movement and what made it different from the Hudson School and other landscape artists author Estelle Riback introduces the reader to four of the most important American Barbizon artists. Each of the artists, William Morris Hunt, George Inness, Homer Dodge Martin, and Alexander Helwig Wyant, get their own chapter with a detailed analysis of their influences, history, style, and the legacy they left behind.

"The Intimate Landscape" is an excellent analysis of the American Barbizon movement and a recommended read for anyone interested in the Barbizon School.

Rating:
Summary: Informative history of the work of American artists
Review: An enthusiastically and unreservedly recommended addition to personal, professional, and academic American Art History collections, The Intimate Landscape: A New Look At The Origins Of The American Barbizon School by Estelle Riback offers an expertly informed and informative history and analysis of the work of American artists William Morris Hunt, George Inness, Homer Dodge Martin, and Alexander Helwig Wyant who were the late-nineteenth-century progenitors of what was to become known as the influential American Barbizon school of art. Breaking with previous American and European art traditions, these four original, gifted, and innovative artists opened a new movement in the development of American landscape painting, preparing the way for an eventual emergence of modern art in American salons, galleries, and popular culture.