Impressionists in Winter: Effets De Neige Book

It may seem eccentric to gather together paintings according to the season they depict, but this large, handsome volume will make readers wonder why no one thought of it before. Winter is different from the other three seasons, with its extraordinary range of color and light--from subtle grays and pinks to deep blues and yellows--and the distinct absence of that difficult color, green. This book, the catalog of an exhibition at the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C., is a collection of more than 60 large color plates of impressionist paintings. They form a surprising group that presents each painting--even if it is already familiar--in a new way. The paintings are beautiful--Monet's Magpie soaking up the sun as he sits on a fence gate; Caillebotte's lacy iron balcony railing overlooking the Mansard roofs of Paris; Renoir's black-cloaked ice skaters in the Bois de Boulogne--but in this frigid season, the impressionists' penchant for working outdoors is arguably what is most impressive. In the introductory essay, Charles S. Moffett, the former director of the Phillips, deftly traces the artistic history of snow imagery from the Limbourg brothers' Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry through Dutch 17th-century snowscapes, Caspar David Friedrich, and Claude Monet "and a few others," as he wryly quotes another historian's "nod" to the impressionists. There are three other essays--on Monet, Pissarro, and Sisley--by three other scholars, as well as lengthy, readable captions filled with quotes from the artists and discussions of their influences. --Peggy Moorman