There are many engaging and rewarding artists whose works can be seen in museums and history books, but never quite make it into the mainstream. Hubert Robert is one of them. For decades I saw Robert’s paintings here and there in museums and books on Romanticism or French Art, (but rarely more than one at a time). Over the years my admiration and curiosity slowly grew, so when I saw this volume I jumped on it. I learned that he lived in the Louvre where he was “Keeper [curator] of the Royal Museum”, he was a royal “Garden Designer”, and later imprisoned for a while during the French Revolution.
This is an exhibition catalogue from the Musée du Louvre/National Gallery of Art, Washington. There are five scholarly and well illustrated chapters of text by five different curators and historians, 10-12 pages each. The sixth chapter is a 24 page biographical chronology with much of the content drawn from letters by Robert and his associates. Following is a catalogue of 102 full page reproductions of Robert’s paintings, drawings, and prints from the exhibition that spans his entire career. The 102 reproductions are followed by 102 corresponding commentaries, each by one of nine different authors, along with titles, dates, mediums, dimensions, collections, some provenances, literature, and supplementary “thumbnail” sized illustrations (perhaps these are the small images a previous reviewer complained of). The dust jacket says there are 184 illustrations. The paintings all appear to be reproduced in color, with black and white and two-tone sepia images limited to prints, drawings, and a 19th century photograph.
This is a very nice book on an under-appreciated artist. My criticisms are minimal. The chapters are short, discontinuous essays by different authors. It would be nice to have it in a more seamless and unified monograph. The plates are in the center of the book but, the commentaries on plates are at the back. You have to find the text for each painting in another part of the book and flip back and forth to see the relevant images as one reads the text.
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Top reviews from other countries
Amazon Customer
A wonderful overview of Robert's work and his life
Reviewed in Canada on April 7, 2018
