Description

Immediate dispatch from Somerset. Book in excellent unread/unused condition. See images. Fantastic book.

About the book >.>.> Work fascinates me” the saying goes; “I can sit and look at it for hours.” Busy New Yorkers gawking at a construction site; television viewers mesmerized by demonstrations of cooking and carpentry; visitors to country fairs clustered around sheepshearers and rail-splitters: all attest to the universal fascination with work especially if it involves skills the viewers themselves do not possess. Through the ages artists have expressed this human interest capturing on their canvases-or in ancient Egypt and China on the walls and in the coffers of tombs-images of farmers shipbuilders stonecutters seamstresses and other workers. Influence in art is often assumed to refer only to style that is the brushwork palette and compositional strategies an artist employs. In practice however style and content are intertwined. When the young Claude Monet who had previously aspired to be a caricaturist painted outdoors in the company of Eug?ne Boudin he emulated the older artist’s sunstruck beach and harbor scenes as well as the feathery touch and bright colors with which they were painted. Similarly the American Impressionists found inspiration for their portrayals of workers in the art of their predecessors. They learned the iconography of labor from engravings; their instructors; visits to museums exhibitions and the homes of collectors in the United States and Europe; and in a few cases from painting on sites associated with revered forerunners. (MP)