Thodore Rousseau and the Rise of the Modern Art Market: An Avant-Garde Landscape Painter in Nineteenth-Century France

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The nineteenth century in France witnessed the emergence of the structures of the modern art market that remain until this day. This book examines the relationship between the avant-garde Barbizon landscape painter, Thodore Rousseau (1812-1867), and this market, exploring the constellation of patrons, art dealers, and critics who surrounded the artist. Simon Kelly argues for the pioneering role of Rousseau, his patrons, and his public in the origins of the modern art market, and, in so doing, shifts attention away from the more traditional focus on the novel careers of the Impressionists and their supporters. Drawing on extensive archival research, the book offers fresh insight into the role of the modern artist as professional. It provides a new understanding of the complex iconographical and formal choices within Rousseaus oeuvre, rediscovering the original radical charge that once surrounded the artists work and led to extensive and peculiarly modern tensions with the market place.

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Simon Kellys consummate study of Thodore Rousseau draws the reader deeply into the complex lived experience of this adventurous, under-examined painter of the French landscape, bringing to light as never before an entire world of making, selling and viewing art in mid-nineteenth-century France, just as the stage was set for the avant-gardes to come. * Thomas Crow, Rosalie Solow Professor of Modern Art, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, USA *
Kellys book makes an important contribution, both to the history of French landscape painting and to recent scholarship on the modern art market. Far from being le grand refus, Rousseau emerges as one of the most commercially shrewd artists of his generation, who used pioneering tactics to promote his often challenging and experimental style of painting. Unorthodox and independent-minded, he became an art market innovator, anticipating some of the strategies employed by the Impressionists. Written with a sensitive and curatorial eye, this fascinating book is based on extensive archival research and includes extracts from stockbooks and procs-verbaux, as well as letters from Rousseau to his patrons, dealers, critics and fellow artists. * Frances Fowle, Chair of Nineteenth-Century Art, University of Edinburgh and Senior Curator of French Art, National Galleries of Scotland, UK *

Author Bio

Simon Kelly is Curator and Head of Department of Modern and Contemporary Art, The Saint Louis Art Museum, USA.