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Title details for The Judgment of Paris by Ross King - Available

The Judgment of Paris

The Revolutionary Decade That Gave the World Impressionism

by Ross King
Tristan Layton
Audiobook
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1 of 1 copy available

While the Civil War raged in America, another very different revolution was beginning to take shape across the Atlantic, in the studios of Paris: The artists who would make Impressionism the most popular art form in history were showing their first paintings amidst scorn and derision from the French artistic establishment. Indeed, no artistic movement has ever been, at its inception, quite so controversial. The drama of its birth, played out on canvas, would at times resemble a battlefield; and, as Ross King reveals, Impressionism would reorder both history and culture as it resonated around the world.
The Judgment of Paris chronicles the dramatic decade between two famous exhibitions—the scandalous Salon des Refuses in 1863 and the first Impressionist showing in 1874—set against the rise and dramatic fall of Napoleon III and the Second Empire after the Franco-Prussian War. A tale of many artists, it revolves around the lives of two, described as "the two poles of art"—Ernest Meissonier, the most famous and successful painter of the 19th century, hailed for his precision and devotion to history; and Edouard Manet, reviled in his time, who nonetheless heralded the most radical change in the history of art since the Renaissance. Out of the fascinating story of their parallel lives, illuminated by their legendary supporters and critics—Zola, Delacroix, Courbet, Baudelaire, Whistler, Monet, Hugo, Degas, and many more—Ross King shows that their contest was not just about Art, it was about competing visions of a rapidly changing world.
With a novelist's skill and the insight of an historian, King recalls a seminal period when Paris was the artistic center of the world, and a revolutionary movement had the power to electrify and divide a nation.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Awards

  • Release date

    May 18, 2006

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781593978785
      • File size: 426175 KB
      • Duration: 14:47:51

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      King's richly detailed and closely packed narrative is a feast for mind and ear, and Tristan Layton's cultivated British and impeccable French bring to life all the glamour and folly of France's doomed Second Empire. The range of characters, events, and moods requires not so much a range of inflections as it does consistency and a defined pitch, around which the narrative's elements can cohere. These Layton supplies with singular ease and fluidity. Immediately his voice becomes the voice of the text and sustains a dramatic tension that holds the attention and subtly shapes and inflects the narrative. Even the paintings, many imprinted in memory but many unfamiliar, come to life in this extraordinary audio experience. D.A.W. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      March 6, 2006
      Listening to Layton is like sitting at a Left Bank cafe with a British friend who knows both the history and gossip of the 1860s' Paris art scene and can put it all in political context. Layton has a friendly, low-pitched voice, good tempo and pace. He's never overly dramatic, but does lift an amusing vocal eyebrow quoting some of the more pompous figures of the period. King describes the mid-century revolution in French art by focusing on the lives and canvases of the extremes of the period. Ernest Meissonier is wildly successful and wealthy, patiently mirroring every face and frock and hoofbeat in precise historical detail, while Edouard Manet is rejected and scorned by the public, peers, critics and buyers for the manner in which he illuminated his impressions of scenes and characters. As Manet gradually moves from brown hues to vibrant colors and from classical to modern settings, King shows his influence on those younger contemporaries—Monet, Pissarro, Renoir, Cezanne, Degas et al.—who came to be known as the Impressionists. Artists, art historians and connoisseurs will be transfixed by this description of the seismic shift in art from the mirror to the lamp. The rest of us may slide over the names of unfamiliar artists, critics, mistresses, models and political figures to focus on the heart of this fascinating story. Simultaneous release with the Walker & Co. hardcover (Reviews, Dec. 19).

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Impressionism in art is so commonplace today that it's hard to realize how astonishingly revolutionary it was at its start. Author Ross King tries to show how wildly inventive and different the style was by examining the Paris art scene in the 1860s. He focuses on two painters, the ultra-realist Ernest Meissonier, who was the most successful painter of Paris at the time, and Edouard Manet, reviled in his time but a far more well-known master today. The book is informative and packed with facts. The text generally translates well to audio, but a lack of visuals, in particular key paintings, will make it hard for the uninitiated to understand changes and developments. Tristan Layton is an adept reader, but his pronunciation of French is so flawless that he says words, names, and places more quickly than American ears may be able to pick up. R.C.G. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from December 19, 2005
      NBCC finalist King (Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling
      ) presents an engrossing account of the years from 1863—when paintings denied entry into the French Academy's yearly Salon were shown at the Salon des Refusés—to 1874, the date of the first Impressionist exhibition. To dramatize the conflict between academicians and innovators during these years, he follows the careers of two formidable, and very different, artists: Jean-Louis-Ernest Meissonier, a conservative painter celebrated for detailed historical subjects, and Édouard Manet, whose painting Le Déjeuner sur l'herbe
      caused an uproar at the Salon des Refusés. Many other artists of the day, among them Courbet, Degas, Morisot, Monet and Cézanne, are included in King's compelling narrative, and the story is further enhanced by the author's vivid portrayal of artistic life in Paris during a turbulent era that saw the siege of the city by the Prussians and the fall of Napoleon III. An epilogue underscores the irony of the tale: after his death, Meissonier quickly fell from favor, while Manet, whose paintings were once judged scandalous, was recognized as a great artist who set the stage for Impressionism and the future of painting. Illus. not seen by PW
      .

    • Publisher's Weekly

      April 17, 2006
      Hilderbrand's fifth book is a fulfilling tale of familial excavation and self-exploration. Marguerite is a lonely chef on Nantucket Island who hasn't cooked for anyone since she sold her restaurant 14 years ago, following the death of her best friend Candace and her own brief stint in a psychiatric hospital. A quirky, endearingly insecure recluse, Marguerite is startled from her solitude by a late-night phone call from Renata Knox, whose question, "Aunt Daisy?" sends Marguerite scrambling to come to terms with her past. Nineteen-year-old Renata is Candace's daughter and Marguerite's estranged goddaughter, visiting the island with her wealthy fiancé. The novel takes place over the day Marguerite spends preparing a meal to welcome Renata, whose own problems include an overbearing mother-in-law-to-be and an incomplete sense of her own mother. Desperate for nurturing and guidance, Renata turns to Marguerite, the woman who knew her mother best—and whom Renata has been forbidden to see most of her life. The story is crafted as expertly as Marguerite's dishes, seasoned with well-measured flashbacks and convincing details of island life and the restaurant business. It's a refreshing, resonant summertime treat.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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This project was made possible in part by the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Funding for additional materials was made possible by a grant from the New Hampshire Humanities and the National Endowment for the Humanities.