L'impressionnisme à ses frontières

With his pioneering writings on the history of the development of modern art, German art critic Julius Meier-Graefe (1867-1935) played a decisive role in the canonization of Impressionism in Europe in 1900. By subversively and energetically defending the paintings of Manet, Renoir and Cézanne across the Rhine, he alienated the conservative elites of the Empire, who were suspicious of the spread of modern artistic values. Throughout his Franco-German career, punctuated by virulent polemics and sheared by the outbreak of the First World War, Meier-Graefe fought against the grip of obtuse nationalism on artistic narratives. His project to regenerate German culture was thus inseparable from his efforts to federate a pacified Europe of images.

While the Francophile progressivism and vitalism of his approach to painting have sometimes been emphasized, a study of his involvement in the cultural-political debates of his time reveals a more nuanced personality. This book reveals the surprising jolts and paradoxes of Meier-Graefe's transnational career, which alternated between phases of unbridled enthusiasm and intense disillusionment. Meier-Graefe reveals himself as a thinker of decline and a champion of idealized modernity, of which Impressionism was both the quintessence and the swan song.