Kermit Swiler Champa

Mondrian Studies

In "Masterpiece" Studies Kermit Champa offers new ways to interpret modernism that have previously been closed off by the application of the reigning art-historical methodologies to the study of the modernist achievement. He focuses on four separate phenomena--Manet's last Salon painting, Bar at the Folies-Bergère; L'Oeuvre, Zola's novel about the realist/impressionist movement; Van Gogh's problematic versions of a single painting, La Berceuse; and the immanent "series" phenomenon of Monet's work of the period. Champa reveals the importance of music, in particular Wagner's music, as a paradigm for later nineteenth-century French painting. He also shows the crucial significance of the concept of the masterpiece as thematized by Zola in his novel for our understanding of certain aspects of the art of Manet, Monet, and Van Gogh. Employing postformalist methodology, the book explores the conversation between works of art produced in close succession and elaborates an aesthetic context for that conversation. Champa also shows how paintings and fictional representations of paintings can announce their points in common, and it is out of this exploration that he radically redefines what constitutes "context."

Manet, Zola, Van Gogh, & Monet

"Masterpiece" Studies

Deborah J. Johnson

David Ogawa

"This volume is an exciting, eclectic collection of essays in honor of Kermit S. Champa, a leading scholar of impressionism and critic of twentieth-century art. The lead essay by David Carrier is followed by others from several generations of scholars and museum curators trained by Professor Champa. Together, they cover an extremely wide historical range, from the eighteenth to twenty-first centuries, and honor Professor Champa's own scholarly rigor, methodological diversity, and intellectual breadth through topics ranging from art history to cultural studies."--Jacket

Essays on Eighteenth- to Twenty-first Century Art in Honor of Kermit S. Champa

Seeing and Beyond

Dietrich Neumann

This fascinating and richly illustrated book traces the history of architectural illumination. 200 photos, 100 in color.

The Illuminated Building

Architecture of the Night

Fronia E. Wissman

Deborah Johnson

Professor Kermit Champa shares his new insight into the musical climate of the time; Fronia Wissman reexamines the relation of these avant-garde artists to the official Paris Salon; Richard R. Brettell presents the critical and theoretical background that provided a context for the rise of landscape painting; and Deborah Johnson traces in new ways the combined influence of the Japanese print and photography on painting. Insightful entries on the individual artists sort out the role of the painters and their work in the art-historical and musical context of mid-nineteenth-century life.

Kermit Swiler Champa

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