Monet: A Retrospective

Interweaving reproductions of Monet's paintings with contemporaneous newspaper reviews, articles and interviews, this magnificently illustrated album (134 color and 120 black-and-white plates, plus 20 color fold-outs) shows how the public first reviled, then glorified Impressionism. Shrill ridicule and begrudging praise gave way to solid appreciation, triggered by comments such as this from Emile Zola: ""His paintings speak whole volumes to me about energy and truth. . . . Here is a man among all these eunuchs.'' Novelist J. K. Huysmans found Monet's early canvases ``sloppy'' and ``hasty,'' but the painter's friend, poet Stephane Mallarme, wrote, ``I have never seen a boat poised more lightly on the water than in his pictures.'' Another supporter, Georges Clemenceau, praised the Water Lilies for daring to achieve the impossible. Critic Clement Greenberg defined Monet's enduring strength: ``Impressionism was, and expressed, his innermost experience.'' Stuckey, curator at the National Gallery of Art, smoothly stitches together the commentaries to form a unique approach to understanding Monet. November 10