Colour and Light - 50 Impressionist Works at the National Museum of Wales

A study of paintings, drawings and sculptures by impressionist and post-impressionist artists, collected by Gwendoline and Margaret Davies, Llandinam and bequeathed to the National Museum of Wales, comprising notes on the artists and their works, and about creating the collection. 108 colour and 11 black-and-white illustrations.

Table of Contents:
Impressionism: Collection and Reception - Ann Sumner. How the paintings came to Cardiff. What was Impressionism? Who collected Impressionist paintings? A family history and later history of the collection. The collection today. The Works. Ann Sumner, with contributions by Louisa Briggs and Julia Carver. Bibliography.

Review :
In today's world of eclectic artistic tastes, it's hard to imagine how much controversy the Impressionist movement caused throughout Europe and North America. Imagine the press furore seen every year at the time of the Turner prize and combine it with the intense debate surrounding Jerry Springer the Opera and you might have an inkling of the upset and gnashing of teeth that swept through the art world when the Impressionists began to emerge in the 1870s. It's interesting then, given this controversy, that two wealthy sisters in mid-Wales started a major collection of Impressionist works at the beginning of the twentieth century. They were the Davies sisters, and their collection, bequeathed to the National Museum of Wales, forms the basis of Ann Sumner's book, Colour and Light. Dr Sumner, Curator of Fine Art at the National Museum of Wales, must feel very grateful to Gwendoline and Margaret Davies. The sisters' philanthropic tendencies and artistic insight have given Wales a world-class art collection (and some wonderful material for this book). Works by Cezanne, Monet, Renoir and Van Gogh are among the 21 artists whose works she examines in catalogue-like fashion. Each work, including iconic images like Renoir's The Blue Lady and some of Monet's Waterlilies, are presented in full colour and examined in detail. Such an iconic mix of artworks deserve being brought together in the way Ann Sumner has succeeded in doing, putting them into their historic context, both in terms of how they fit into the development of nineteenth and twentieth century art, and how they came to be part of National Museum of Wales's collection. Clearly the gift of hindsight has changed how the world views the Impressionists (no more hysterical cries over the lightness of a brushstroke), but how we view artists or movements is always coloured by the times we live in, and it is good to have Ann Sumner's reappraisal for the twenty-first century.