Review of The Chronicle of Impressionism by Bernard Denvir

[Steve Brock]

THE CHRONICLE OF IMPRESSIONISM: A TIMELINE HISTORY OF IMPRESSIONIST
ART by Bernard Denvir. Bulfinch Press, 34 Beacon St., Boston, MA
02108, (800) 343-9204, (617) 227-4633 FAX. Illustrated (203 color
and 202 black-and-white), index, biographical index, list of
impressionist collections, bibliography, maps. 288 pp., $40.00
cloth. 0-8212-2042-X

REVIEW

Denvir impressively chronicles the Impressionist movement (1863-
1900) and to a lesser extent its legacy (1900 to the present). The
19th century period is broken into month-by-month periods, with
icons indicating if the entry is an exhibition, a document, an
important person, or a theme or other event. Appendices contain
short biographies of Impressionist artists, photographs and maps of
locations where Impressionists spent their time, and a list of
major Impressionist collections. Although restricted to French
Impressionism, this is a handy and easy-to-use reference to a time
when artists painted "not what they thought they saw, nor what they
thought they ought to see, but what they did see."