Monet at Giverny

From Barnes & Noble

In this volume from the Pegasus Library series on art and artists, the last major period in Claude Monet's career is analyzed. Having finally earned the money and gained the respect he sought in his early days as a struggling painter, Claude Monet designed and built the home and gardens in the village on the Seine that would be the site of the famous "Grain Stacks" and "Water Lilies" paintings that would secure his reputation. A good, affordable introductory study of the pioneer of modern art.

Library Journal

Each of the attractively designed, compact, and well-illustrated hardcover books in this series deals with a specific facet of an artist's career. As with any series, the quality of the titles varythough the translations from the German are all dotted with odd grammatical constructions and the occasional ambiguity. Sagner-Dchting's discussion of Claude Monet's work at Giverny is a good introduction to the artist's important contribution to Impressionism as well as a careful analysis of his great series of grain stacks and water lilies. Partsch focuses on Klimt's relationships with womenboth as an artist and as a manoffering a good, detailed account of Klimt and Emilie Flge (a fashion designer and perhaps his true love). The one disappointment is the work on Rodin and Claudel. Schmoll is defensive about the attention and praise given sculptor Camille Claudel in recent years (often, admittedly, at the expense of Rodin). His portrayal of Claudel in this brief book is at times quite negative and at odds with the picture that has emerged from the work of Reine-Marie Paris (Camille Claudel, National Museum of Women in the Arts, 1990). The "Pegasus Library" aims to provide a focused study of one aspect of an artist's oeuvre in an inexpensive format. Previous subjects include Pablo Picasso, Marc Chagall, and Vasily Kandinsky (all LJ 11/1/94). Although individual titles may be of interest to libraries, the narrow focus and variations in quality make the series as a whole an optional purchase.Martin R. Kalfatovic, Smithsonian Inst. Libs., Washington, D.C.