This catalogue and its companion volume of essays are published in conjunction with the exhibition "The Private Collection of Edgar Degas," held at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, from October 1, 1997, to January 11, 1998.

In The Work of Art, Anthea Callen analyzes the self-portraits, portraits of fellow artists, photographs, prints, and studio images of prominent nineteenth-century French Impressionist painters, exploring the emergence of modern artistic identity and its relation to the idea of creative work. Landscape painting in general, she argues, and the “plein air” oil sketch in particular were the key drivers of change in artistic practice in the nineteenth century—leading to the Impressionist revolution. Putting the work of artists from Courbet and Cézanne to Pissaro under a microscope, Callen examines modes of self-representation and painting methods, paying particular attention to the painters’ touch and mark-making. Using innovative methods of analysis, she provides new and intriguing ways of understanding material practice within its historical moment and the cultural meanings it generates. Richly illustrated with 180 color and black-and-white images, The Work of Art offers fresh insights into the development of avant-garde French painting and the concept of the modern artist.

This is a comparative study of the national significance of the classical revival which marked English and French art during the second half of the nineteenth century. It argues that the main focus of artists' interest in classical Greece, was the body of the Greek athlete. It explains this interest, first, by artists' contact with the art of Pheidias and Polycletus which portrayed it; and second, by the claim, made by physical anthropologists, the classical body typified the race of the European nations.

"This stylish and erudite thematic study of the influence Romanticism exerts upon Western culture and particularly the visual arts is the companion volume to Honour's equally valuable Neo-classicism.... The text is supported by a useful selection of illustrations Excellent footnotes and a good index. Finely produced, Romanticism will stimulate the graduate and inform the undergraduate." —Choice "An interpretation that rings true for our own time.... His approach to his vast subject is essentially cool, analytic and balanced This is a book that covers an immense amount of material with a freshness of touch." —John Russell, The New York Times "A book of great interest and quality which gives form to a subject that is often treated very vaguely." —Kenneth Clark