French Eighteenth-century Painters

📖 The Scoop

The Goncourt brothers, Edmond (1822-96) and Jules (1830-70), were novelists, art critics, and collectors. Contemporaries of Flaubert and Zola, they achieved a reputation as exponents of realism in the novel, but their lasting fame rests on their "Journal" and on their series of monographs on French eighteenth-century painters. In this volume, six of their most attractive essays are presented, dealing with Watteau, Boucher, Chardin, La Tour, Greuze, and Fragonard. The Goncourts were passionate collectors, and their writing conveys their enthusiasm, excitement, and deep appreciation of their subjects. They had discerning taste, and their judgements are perceptive and penetrating. They were also zealous documentary researchers. As historians they sought the same detailed realism that they cultivated as novelists, and their work represents a basic documentary source book. -- From publisher's description.

Genre: Art / History / General (fancy, right?)