FROM THE PUBLISHER

In Romanticism and Its Discontents, Booker Prize-winning novelist and celebrated art historian Anita Brookner offers a stunning reassessment of the masters of French Romantic painting in the context of nineteenth-century poetry, literature, and criticism.

Examining the works of these artists, Brookner traces the way in which French Romanticism evolved from the political turmoil of the late eighteenth century and the defeat of Waterloo in 1815, and replaced the agnosticism of the Enlightenment and the Revolution with a new heroism. She argues that the Romantics in France made the heroism of modern life their creed and "transferred their idealism to the domain of art, either as practitioners or as critics."

Here is Gros as hero and victim, Alfred de Musset as enfant du siecle, Delacroix as Romantic Classicist, and later in the century, Zola as an advocate of life for art's sake and Huysman's indulging in the madness of art.

In Romanticism and Its Discontents, Anita Brookner takes us on a fascinating tour of these artists, poets, and critics, bringing unfamiliar works brilliantly to life and casting a new light on more recognizable ones.

FROM THE CRITICS

Francine Prose

Marvelous . . . a gem of a book.

Publishers Weekly

Following her earlier biography of the neoclassicist painter Jacques-Louis David, acclaimed novelist and art historian Brookner (Hotel du Lac; Falling Slowly; etc.) here tackles the French Romantics. As a brief outline of the movement, this study breaks no new ground, but it is a fluent and shapely introduction that covers the major names, with chapters devoted to artists Ingres, Delacroix and Gros, writers Musset, Baudelaire, Zola and Huysmans, and the Goncourt brothers. As in the David biography, which focused on how the artist's later career was ruined by his homosexuality, and as in Brookner's novels of the rich, sensitive and depressed, the latter part of the title (a takeoff on Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents) rules the interpretations here. With artists like Baron Gros, Brookner wonderfully integrates psychobiography with social history, implying that during the Terror following the French Revolution, this artist's paranoia was sensible and lifesaving. The Goncourt brothers are lauded for their "unflinching pessimism which cannot quite conceal a sorrowing outlook." Brookner overrates Madame de Sta l and misleadingly calls the tyrannically gifted 18th-century epistolary artist Madame du Deffand "a modest and discreet person." Despite a novelist like Zola, who personified "Romanticism as energy," the final word is given to the "constitutionally depressed" critic Sainte-Beuve. (Surprisingly, there is no bibliography or list of suggested reading.) Brookner definitely paints the Romantics with her own brush--making sure that no one has too good a time--but she communicates her highly personal view with the sureness of a professional in literary low spirits. Illus. not seen by PW. (Oct.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|

Library Journal

Art historian and novelist Brookner here discusses Romanticism as it existed in the arts in France from 1800 to 1880. She views Romanticism as the fruition of the artist/writer's despair and doubt, which resulted from the collapse of idealism in the aftermath of the French Revolution and Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo. Turning away from life's disenchantment and ennui, the artist plunged into the realm of the imagination in order to achieve personal fulfillment. Brookner examines how the work of eight artists and writers of this period reflected these aspects of Romanticism. While her thesis works for artists up to Delacroix, Brookner seems to be straining a bit with Ingres, the Brothers Goncourt, and Zola. While she does say that Ingres negates the idea of the disillusioned Romantic, it is hard to understand why he is included at all in this selection of artists. Brookner's thesis aside, valuable information is given on all of these artistic figures, making this a good accompanying text to an undergraduate survey on 19th-century French art and culture. Recommended for academic and art libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 6/15/00.]--Sandra Rothenberg, Framingham State Coll., MA Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.\

Booknews

Art for life's sake became the watchword of the French Romantics. Arguing that they transferred their idealism to art in reaction to the anti-heroism of the Enlightenment and French Revolution, a London art historian traces the movement's evolution by examining this change in outlook in the work and views of Gros, de Mussett, Baudelaire, Delacroix, Ingres, the Goncourt brothers, Zola, and Huysmans. Includes 41 color and b&w plates. References are interspersed throughout the text. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Economist