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Pierre Rosenberg, the Chardin scholar and President-Director of the Musée du Louvre, had one overriding goal in mind when assembling the exhibition of which
Chardin is the catalog: "to present the artist's finest paintings, the most perfect, the most harmonious, the paintings that leave nothing to be desired." The 99 paintings reproduced in this book are a testimony to the success of that endeavor. There are also six essays by Chardin experts and an extensively researched chronology.
Chardin's still lifes and genre scenes have been deeply appreciated for centuries for what Rosenberg calls "the grave, silent quality that encourages the onlooker to silent reverie." He is incapable of untruth: his subjects--jugs and bowls, glasses, cherries, housemaids, boys at play, dogs and cats--are painted without a touch of irony, embellishment, or drama.
It is painful to report that this volume is extremely disappointing visually, with plates that are either poorly reproduced or reproduced from poor transparencies and are slightly greenish or washed out. Except for details, which do show Chardin's close harmonies and painterly touch, the pictures look flat and dull. Art historians, of course, will see the paintings in the flesh and use this book as only an aide-memoire, but for ordinary, nonprofessional art lovers, the 20-year-old catalog of the great 1979 Chardin exhibition gives a far better sense of the quiet perfection of this subtle artist. Even a pocket book from Abrams' Discoveries series, Chardin: An Intimate Art, by Helene Prigent and Pierre Rosenberg, is far superior. Although its reproductions are minuscule by comparison, they are at least clear and clean, with colors that appear to be close to those of the original works. The little book may be only an hors d'oeuvre, but it has all the flavor that is missing in the full-course meal. --Peggy Moorman
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From Publishers Weekly
Rosenberg's concise pk analysis of the 18th-century Parisian painter Jean Baptiste Simeon Chardin, known predominantly for his harmonious still lifes, is appreciative yet fair-minded. Chardin, born in 1699, apprenticed at the studios of the artists Cazes and Coypel, beginning in 1718. Admitted to the Royal Academy in 1728 on the basis of his highly regarded still lifes The Skate and The Sideboard , the painter owed little, according to Rosenberg, to the Academy's "official precepts," showing "small inclination to be trained as one of those painters of historical scenes then considered to be the only real artists." The author touches upon Chardin's "special contribution" to the genre of still life--"a subtle interplay of light and shade, a softening of the outlines," and the famous "thick and clotted brushwork"--and examines the painter's "incapacity to paint from the imagination,"p. 47 relying instead on keeping his subject right before his eyes. Rosenberg's informative text is accompanied by handsome illustrations of Chardin's work, including many of his figure paintings. The author also includes critical comments from artists and writers, such as Diderot, van Gogh and Malraux. Rosenberg ( Laurent de la Hyre ) is head curator of the Department of Painting for the Louvre.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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