Sara Pappas, "Naturalism's Imaginary Museum, French Art, and the Eclectic Nineteenth Century" (U Toronto Press, 2024)

Naturalism's Imaginary Museum, French Art, and the Eclectic Nineteenth Century (University of Toronto Press, 2024) examines one of the most revered art historical narratives of Western

art: the famous turning point for painting and sculpture usually

emblematized by the works of Édouard Manet and then the Impressionists.

Instead of the usual revaluation of this turning point, Sara Pappas

argues for the importance of the failure to find a cohesive story for

the art world in the period itself, a difficulty that carries forward to

galleries today. In order to demonstrate the importance of incongruity

and disorder, Pappas brings together two worlds that may seem

incompatible: nineteenth-century literary writers involved in naturalism

and the organization of permanent collections of later

nineteenth-century French art in today's museums. Drawing on the art

novels and art criticism of these writers, the book provides optimal