The Life and Works art series collects the world's greatest artists and art movements into a handsome set of monographs Each book features a biography of an artist or an explanation of the movement, followed by 50 magnificent, individually commentated reproductions Each is an affordable treasure, sure to please every seasoned critic and newcomer to the beauty of great art.

"Inspiring Impressionism" explores links between Impressionists and the major European art-historical movements that came before them, demonstrating how often beneath the Impressionists' commitment to capturing contemporary life there lay a deep exploration of the art of the past. Presents Impressionist works by artists including Manet, Monet, Degas, Bazille, Cassatt, and Cezanne alongside those of Raphael, El Greco, Rubens, Velazquez, and others.

In this innovative approach to Impressionism and its methods, Jonathan Stephenson's instruction enables amateurs the world over to paint like the Impressionists. Vibrantly illustrated in colour throughout, both with well-known works of art and step-by-step examples, the book shows how the masters achieved their diverse effects and how their ideas and styles can be adapted to today's tastes. Sections on the artists provide fascinating insights into individual techniques: learn how Monet produced his oil colour sketches, or how Sisley created his atmospheric landscapes. With an introduction providing the historical background to Impressionism, and a comprehensive section on artists' materials, this is a highly practical book that will appeal both to beginners and more experienced artists, as well as to the many thousands of of people inspired by the brilliance and beauty of Impressionist painting.

A must-have for any art buff, this definitive who's who of Impressionism gathers 10 monographs from the Basic Art series for the price of three. Precise texts and impeccable reproductions guide us through the life and works of Cézanne, Degas, Gauguin, Manet, Monet, Renoir, Rousseau, Seurat, Toulouse-Lautrec, and van Gogh.

"Drawing on scientific studies of pigments and materials, artists' treatises, colourmen's archives, and contemporary and modern accounts, Anthea Callen demonstrates how raw materials and paintings are profoundly interdependent. She analyses the material constituents of oil painting and the complex processes of 'making' entailed in all aspects of artistic production, discussing in particular oil painting methods for landscapists and the impact of plein air light on figure painting, studio practice and display. Insisting that the meanings of paintings are constituted by and within the cultural matrices that produced them, Callen argues that the real 'modernity' of the Impressionist enterprise lies in the painters' material practices."--BOOK JACKET.