Author: Ross King File Type: epub Claude Monet is perhaps the worlds most beloved artist, and among all his creations, the paintings of the water lilies in his garden at Giverny are most famous. Seeing them in museums around the world, viewers are transported by the power of Monets brush into a peaceful world of harmonious nature. Monet himself intended them to provide an asylum of peaceful meditation. Yet, as Ross King reveals in his magisterial chronicle of both artist and masterpiece, these beautiful canvases belie the intense frustration Monet experienced at the difficulties of capturing the fugitive effects of light, water, and color. They also reflect the terrible personal torments Monet suffered in the last dozen years of his life. Mad Enchantment tells the full story behind the creation of the Water Lilies, as the horrors of World War I came ever closer to Paris and Giverny, and a new generation of younger artists, led by Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso, were challenging the achievements of Impressionism. By early 1914, French newspapers were reporting that Monet, by then 73 and one of the worlds wealthiest, most celebrated painters, had retired his brushes. He had lost his beloved wife, Alice, and his eldest son, Jean. His famously acute vision--what Paul Cezanne called the most prodigious eye in the history of painting--was threatened by cataracts. And yet, despite ill health, self-doubt, and advancing age, Monet began painting again on a more ambitious scale than ever before. Linking great artistic achievement to the personal and historical dramas unfolding around it, Ross King presents the most intimate and revealing portrait of an iconic figure in world culture--from his lavish lifestyle and tempestuous personality to his close friendship with the fiery war leader Georges Clemenceau, who regarded the Water Lilies as one of the highest expressions of the human spirit.**ReviewNever before has the full drama and significance of Monets magnificent Water Lilies been conveyed with such knowledge and perception, empathy and wonder. BooklistRoss King has a knack for explaining complicated processes in a manner that is not only lucid but downright intriguing . . . Fascinating. Los Angeles Times on BRUNELLESCHIS DOMEAn altogether enchanting tale. Dava Sobel, author of LONGITUDE and GALILEOS DAUGHTER, on BRUNELLESCHIS DOME[A] dramatic, vivid, and brainy mix of biography and art history. starred review, Booklist on LEONARDO AND THE LAST SUPPERA fascinating and in-depth story of one of the worlds most famous works of art that will appeal to general readers as well as academics. Highly recommended. starred review, Library Journal on LEONARDO AND THE LAST SUPPERRiveting . . . Such material could have been tedious in less nimble literary hands. But so thorough is Kings grasp of the Second Empires cultural politics, so ironic his wit and choice of detail, that his text remains a page-turner throughout. Los Angeles Times on THE JUDGMENT OF PARISScrupulously researched, written with wit and panache, Ross Kings Michelangelo and the Popes Ceiling is a sublime peek into a remarkable era. Miami Herald on MICHELANGELO AND THE POPES CEILINGAbout the Author Ross King is the author of Brunelleschis Dome, Michelangelo and the Popes Ceiling, The Judgment of Paris, Leonardo and the Last Supper, and Machiavelli Philosopher of Power, along with two novels, Ex Libris and Domino. He has twice won Canadas Governor Generals Award, and his work has been nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award, the Charles Taylor Prize, and the National Award for Arts Writing. He has lectured at the Art Institute of Chicago, the Smithsonian, the Aspen Institute, and the Frick Collection, and in Florence, Milan, Paris, and Giverny. Born in Canada, he now lives near Oxford with his wife, Melanie.