Like Breath on Glass: Whistler, Inness, and the Art of Painting Softly Hardcover – July 28, 2008

Quite a beautiful book/exhibition on so-called "soft" painting of the 19th Century. This is the catalogue for a 2008 exhibition mounted by the Clark Art Institute. Wish I'd seen it as I don't know much about tonalist painting and painters, though the aesthetic is very interesting and impressive when you are introduced through the artists represented in the show and catalogue.James Whistler is the titular star here, but I found the works of Eduard Steichen to be the real stunners of the group. Mood and quiet are the underlying motifs in all of the work represented. Hard not to be moved. Lovely book.

great, good fine, excellent and I hope there are enough words to make it 20...I guess I need a few more, so hope this amount of words are enough.

Wonderful book with good illustrations.

A lovely book on tonalist painters on an often difficult to find subject. Nice print job, even in the paperback. Enjoy having this book to broaden my art book library...worth the price!

This book accompanied the exhibition at the Sterling & Francine Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, MA, June 22-Oct. 19, 2008. It gives a "history of the vague, the suggested, and the ineffable in American painting from 1870 to 1920....There is a sense of softness in the scenes portrayed: the contours of objects are blurred, details are suggested rather than elaborated, and the atmosphere of a scene seems thickened with vapor or mist....The painters achieve these effects with indirect, mysterious means that minimize obvious traces of virtuosic brushwork..." (pp.3-4).The exhibited paintings are discussed in 5 essays: 1."Painting Softly--An Introduction" by Marc Simpson; 2."Whistler, Modernism, & the Cultural Afflatus" by Marc Simpson; 3."George Inness, Softness, & the Vapor Barrier" by Leo G. Mazow; 4."True Illusions in Soft Paintings" by Cody Hartley; & 5."Materials for Immateriality" by Joyce Hill Stoner. The section of 41 color plates (pp. 111-193) is followed by 3 more essays. Michael J. Lewis discusses Frankenthaler, Olitski, & Morris Louis as pioneers of a new kind of soft painting in "The 'Inaction Painters' & Their Moment." Wanda M. Corn looks back on her ground-breaking 1972 exhibition in "Reflections on 'The Color of Mood.'" Her essay from that catalogue is reprinted here: "The Color of Mood: American Tonalism, 1880-1910."Here are a few of my own eye-opening moments from this book. Simpson compares 2 Whistler paintings to demonstrate the beginning of "painting softly" (pp. 4-9). Stoner, a paintings conservator, shows us enlarged details of some of the varied techniques & canvases used by these artists (pp. 91-107). Many of the paintings were new to me; I'll just mention here 4 beautiful soft-focus landscapes by Steichen (pl. 35, 37-39).

If you like Whistler you will like this book. After I got my Turner book I was more interested in it and didn't finish this book.

This book is an elegant representation of works using paint sparingly....or seemingly so.....the essence is represented....a Beautiful Book.