“The Private Lives of the Impressionists” — #29 on “My Favorite Books About Art”
I enjoyed Sue Roe’s “The Private Lives of the Impressionists,” and it becomes #29 on “My Favorite Books About Art.” I have often studied the artists covered in this well-researched book and have experienced their art in museums in Europe and the United States, but I have had limited exposure to the everyday workings of their lives. Ms. Roe outlines the successes and triumphs, and also the difficult, sometimes desperate, financial, emotional and physical challenges for Manet, Monet, Pissarro, Cézanne, Renoir, Degas, Sisley, Morisot and Cassatt, among others. I was very much interested in her relatively positive characterization of the sometimes enigmatic Edgar Degas, as it was in stark contrast to “Odd Man Out” by Carol Armstrong (which is also included in “My Favorite Books About Art.”).
Thomas