Word: impressionist
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Identity?precious, elusive, fakable?is at the heart of Hari Kunzru's engaging debut novel The Impressionist (Penguin; 481 pages), which explores what it is to be Indian, English and all that lies between. The boy who would will himself into becoming Jonathan Bridgeman was born Pran Nath, spoiled heir to a wealthy Hindu clan in WW I-era British India. He is celebrated for his royal paleness?until he is revealed to be the half-breed bastard of a British officer. Teenage Pran is promptly tossed from his house and launched on a journey to the ragged ends...
...lush Indian landscape and a romantic Oxford, switching from wit to weight without misstep. But something is lacking. Kunzru's hero has identities to spare but no soul, and in the end he crumbles away. Kunzru's writing suffers similarly: it is the work of a brilliant literary impressionist who hits every symbol, fulfills every gesture, while missing something essential beneath the shining surface. Perhaps he knows this. "In between each impression," Kunzru writes, "just at the moment when one person falls away and the next has yet to take possession, the impressionist is completely blank. There is nothing there...
Copies of these prints line the foyer outside the new exhibition on Toulouse Lautrec at the Fogg Art Museum. The focal point of this exhibit, however, is the collection of six portraits, entitled Three Women: Early Portraits by Toulouse Lautrec, from his pre-Moulin Rouge days. Reflecting impressionist and even Renaissance influences, the portraits are among Toulouse Lautrec’s most conservative works, standing in sharp contrast to the decadent, brazen prints outside...
Toulouse-Lautrec’s work is often seen in large museums within exhibits of other post-impressionist art, but the Fogg’s presentation adds a particular socio-historical context to the painter’s earliest efforts...
...IMPRESSIONIST STILL LIFE