cover image British Impressionism

British Impressionism

Kenneth McConkey. ABRAMS, $49.5 (160pp) ISBN 978-0-8109-1236-6

British impressionism, like its American counterpart, has skulked in the shadows of Monet, Renoir and other French favorites. Here, in 132 excellent plates and an engaging text, is a comprehensive survey of a movement that wore many faces, from Laura Knight's intensely radiant beach scenes to Walter Sickert's urban world refracted through a restricted palette and quirky narrative technique. There is no doubt that the British impressionists are cooler and more controlled than the French: Henry Herbert La Thangue's landscapes, for example, impress with their solidity even as their lyric poetry transports the viewer. Yet the British were also adept at recording transitory moments, middle-class pleasures, effects of light and atmosphere. McConkey, who teaches in England, follows the vagaries of a movement enlivened by American expatriates James Whistler and John Singer Sargent and French expatriate Lucien Pissarro, son of the famous impressionist, Camille. (Sept.)