My feelings about this book mirror the feelings I had when I attended the exhibition this catalogue is drawn from. I had the pleasure of seeing the Childe Hassam retrospective in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2004; it was one of the few times that I have seen total strangers turn to one another at an exhibition this size and speak with each other about their mutual amazement for the artist's technique. I knew a bit about Impressionism, and a bit about American artists such as Whistler and Cassatt who were influenced by Impressionism. But I didn't know anything about Hassam. Who was this wonderful artist and why didn't my college courses in modern art teach me about him?
I wanted to learn as much as I could, and this book provided me with the answers to both questions. Childe Hassam was the essential link between the Impressionism of Paris and later American descendants of the genre. He was a proud and gifted man who, like most giants, contained giant-sized paradoxes. He steadfastly denied the influence of Monet while clearly celebrating that influence in his cityscapes. He championed the spirit of the growing spirit of New York City while denying its increasingly immigrant population. In the end, like so many greats, he was an anachronism and ignored by the younger avant-garde. After reading and rereading this immensively informative book, I had a good idea of both who Hassam was and why modern art scholars have trouble with his standing among his peers. He's a complicated person, but aren't all great artists?
The illustrations in this book, as you'd expect, are not only first rate but complete. We are treated not only to full-page accurately colored reproductions but also to many enlarged details of the same paintings. All the paintings from the exhibition along with many that were notare reproduced here,and several paintings by Monet and Degas are included for comparisons. The writing style is largely academic, but I think most of this book would be accessible to anyone who loves to read and isn't easily discouraged by long blocks of text. This isn't an oversized picture book, but an indepth examination of Hassam that places him in the context of the early 20th Century.
If you enjoy Impressionism and the roots of modern art, and you have a penchant for learning all you can about some of the relatively forgotten figures from that time, you will not only add this book to your collection but cherish it.