Cezanne and the End of Impressionism: A Study of the Theory, Technique, and Critical Evaluation of Modern Art

Drawing on a broad foundation in the history of nineteenth-century French art, Richard Shiff offers an innovative interpretation of C zanne's painting. He shows how C zanne's style met the emerging criteria of a "technique of originality" and how it satisfied critics sympathetic to symbolism as well as to impressionism. Expanding his study of the interaction of C zanne and his critics, Shiff considers the problem of modern art in general. He locates the core of modernism in a dialectic of making (technique) and finding (originality). Ultimately, Shiff provides not only clarifying accounts of impressionism and symbolism but of a modern classicism as well.