^TM

Guide to Impressionist Paris

By Patty Lurie

Reviewed by Angela Wibking

Everyone knows Paris is filled with great art and great art museums. No visit to the city is complete without a tour of the Louvre, where one can see that famous smiling lady, or the Musee d’Orsay, filled with works by the great French Impressionists. After hours in these great museums, though, it’s time to get out into the streets and experience the art of the city itself.

And that’s where artist/author Patty Lurie’s book Guide to Impressionist Paris (Robson Press, $24.95) comes in. Beautifully illustrated with detailed maps, color photographs and Impressionism paintings, the book offers nine walking tours of Paris that take you into the very scenes that inspired Monet, Degas, Renoir and 26 other great artists to create unforgettable works of art.

The first walking tour, for example, begins at the front door of the Musee d’Orsay and ends at the Louvre’s back door. On this stroll, Lurie points out the places immortalized on canvas by Camille Pissarro, Childe Hassam, Paul Signac, Renoir, Albert Lebourg, and Monet.

As a fascinating comparison, each painting is illustrated in the book alongside a present-day photograph of the same Paris scene. So with the help of Lurie’s book, not only can you tour famous sights like the Place de la Concorde, Notre Dame, the Luxembourg Gardens, Montmartre or the Eiffel Tower, you’ll see how those places were interpreted by great artists.

But it’s not just the famous sights that fascinated these artists. Everyday street scenes, river traffic on the Seine, bridges, bistros and byways all served as inspiration for the French Impressionists, as Lurie’s book illustrates. Along with the maps, and paintings, the author also includes excellent information on each artist and his approach to painting Paris.

In short, this is the kind of book that’s sure to inspire art-loving travelers to book a flight to Paris  tout de suite so they can follow along in the footsteps of these great artists. But even if you can’t jet off to France right now, Guide to Impressionist Paris offers an “armchair” tour through both a city and an art style that you’ll savor.

Order this book from Amazon.com here.

Back to TravelLady Magazine