BRITISH IMPRESSIONISM.**

UK,Qrto HB+dw/dj,1st edn thus.[Originally published,same year,by PHAIDON PRESS LIMITED,UK.This is the Book Club edn by arrangement and with permission.] FINE/NFINE.No owner inscrptn,dw/dj unclipped - no publisher price present as a book club issue/edn. Bright, crisp,clean, glossy laminated colour pictorial artwork illustrated dw/dj; with negligible shelf-wear and creasing to edges and corners.An internal sellotape repair to a small,closed tear/nicks with reciprocal creasing fault,at head of spine/backstrip.Otherwise fine,no other nicks or tears present.Top edge with some slight dust-soiling and minimal spotting (not foxing!), fore-edges brighter and cleaner and unaffected; contents bright,tight and near pristine - no dog-ear reading creases to any page's corners - an unread copy? Bright,clean,publisher's original,plain purple cloth boards with bright,crisp,stamped silver gilt letters to spine/backstrip and immaculate plain white endpapers.UK,Qrto HB+dw/dj,1st edn thus,8- 160pp [paginated] includes author preface and acknowledgements,7 chapters,profuse b/w+colour plates/illustrations/paintings throughout the text and the book (132 illus - 70 in colour),notes,a select bibliography,a biographical index and a general index; plus [unpaginated] b/w photographic vignetted half-title page (detail from In Arcadia,Alexander Harrison),double-page colour painting illustrated title page (John Lavery, The Tennis Party,1885.),contents list/table and 2 colour plates (John Singer Sargent and Harold Knight respectively). 'Beauty lies in the light,. . . as much in the atmosphere which surrounds things as in their actual form and fashion.' These words appear in Stanhope Forbes's 'Treatment of Modern Life in Art',and they stand as the credo of an extraordinarily accomplished generation of painters - including Forbes,Lavery,Sargent and Sickert - the British Impressionists. In the latter half of the 19thC,widespread discontent with academic Victorian art in Britain became transmuted by contacts with French Impressionist ideas into a new concept of the role of art and the artist.In the full light of a new awareness of painting,the author shows how colonies of disparate artists merged and refined their ideas on colour, light and form into an Impressionist style that is distinctly British.Artists such as Steer,Clausen,O'Conor and Laura Knight depicted an enormous variety of urban and rural scenes,from fashionable tennis parties,music hall entertainers,and laundry shops,to goose girls, boat-builders,turnip harvesters,and picnickers.Too long overshadowed by their French counterparts,only now is the significance and contribution of British artists to the Impressionist movement beginning to be fully appreciated. This beautiful and comprehensive book surveys the exciting developments,debates and personalities amongst French,British,and American painters of the period,and the ferment and challenge of their ideas and achievements to which we are grateful heirs. Please contact rpaxtonden@blueyonder.co.uk ,because of the weight (nearly 1.4Kg unpackaged) of this item,for correct,insured shipping/P+p quotes - particularly ALL overseas buyers - BEFORE ordering through the order page!