California Light: A Century of Landscapes: Paintings of the California Art Club

Although I was raised in California, the past 32 years I've spent either on the East Coast or Midwest. During that time, I have always held a special place in my heart for the landscape and people of this beautiful state where I grew up. Now that I have time to return to painting (after busy career and children), I have again fallen in love with the impressionist painters of the early 20th Century who so magically captured the feeling of the Pacific Coast, the coastal valleys and the high Sierras. When I stumbled upon this book on Amazon I immediately purchased it as I new that the subject of "California Light" would hold endless inspiration for my own paintings. To put it simply, I am in awe of this beautiful book. It has brought me to tears several times as I study the paintings and the stories about the painters, their lives and their pursuits of the character and beauty of the land their hearts compelled them to capture in paint. I feel like I'm home when I am lost in this book. No, I feel like I'm "found" - again. For me, the study of this book is as good as a fine art workshop by a renowned American artist. Kudos to the authors!! I treasure this and will find inspiration in it for many years to come.

This book was purchased as a Christmas gift for my son, who is a very talented artist in his own right. He loves the book and uses the word "gorgeous" to describe it. The book came plastic wrapped to assure protection against elements, so I never had the opportunity to look at the book myself since he lives several hundred miles away and could not come home because of the pandemic. I am happy if he is happy!

Beautiful reproductions of a range of artworks. We are so accustomed to looking at images online that we forget how satisfying it is to spend a few hours with a quality picture book in your lap.

This is a beautiful and informative book that uniquely combines a profile and examples of both "historic" California landscape artists with many of the best artists working in California today. The paintings reproduced here represent many of the finest examples of their work.Jean Stern is the Executive Director of the Irvine Museum of Art in California and is the preeminent authority on this subject. He has written many other books and essays and has lectured widely about California art. Both Mr. Stern and Molly Siple have written brief, lively and authoritative profiles of the artists. Whether you are new to collecting and appreciating art or have been haunting galleries and art auctions for decades you will find much to enjoy and appreciate in this beautifully produced book.

This is my favorite art book to date. If you like beautiful coffee table volumes of impressionistic art, you've got to have this one. The paintings are beautifully reproduced. The colors glow and come alive on the pages. Although it's never the same as seeing them in person in a museum, I think this book is about as close as you can get. The images are very large. Some are even printed across the spread. Leafing through it is a journey through some of the best contemporary artwork in the California plein air style. For a book of this quality, the price is a true bargain. I'm so glad I got it.

I first got this book out of the library and loved it, so I had to buy it. If you like landscapes and seascapes in a looser more impressionistic style you will love this book. The book is filled with wonderful paintings, so if you are just looking for a beautiful coffee table type book it's great, but since I am taking painting classes, I found the book inspirational and educational (I have studied the styles, composition, brush techniques, etc, to use in my paintings).

This book is well worth the price! It is packed full of amazing color paintings of CA - along with interesting stories about the history of this type of CA painting style...one of the most amazing things in this book is the use of light in the paintings...the colors and shadows are really incredible. Anyone who loves Southern CA rancheros, adobes, orange groves, etc. will love this book. Not only is it historical, it is a wonderful primer of this type of impressionist light painting...and also a beautiful art exhibit in book form of amazing CA art.

This is a wonderful book. There are about 10-12 of these books that were ordered after one of the painters in our group of artists in Colorado Springs had bought one and then all of us got them. The color reproduction in the photos in this book are terrific. I would recommend it to anyone and all of us who have copies are throughly enjoying it.

A very beautiful and rewarding volume to look through and study; this generously illustrated hardback book is a typical production number from this respected publishing house.It presents an overview of painting from members of the California Art Club roughly covering the period of it`s existence and features works from the early part of the century up until the present; most of the contemporary work could be labelled as mainstream, upholding the tradition of realism and impressionist plein-air painting.The illustrations are (as one would expect) colourful, large and well reproduced; it`s a very good selection of work that anyone interested in outdoor painting should find interesting.An excellent book all-in.A companion volume to this has recently been published - “Painting California” by the same authors – well worth tracking down and using a similar format to this one.

Impressionism is alive and well, and has been living in California for the last 120 years.I found this book quite astonishing. Fundamentally, it's the centenary celebration of the Californian Art Club; in effect, though, it's a history of Impressionism in the USA, most of which, unsurprisingly, seems to have happened in California, with its Mediterranean-like climate. The book divides into two parts, the first being a history of Californian Art at the end of the 19th century and up to about 1920 (when the inexplicable craze for modernism took a hold). In fact, it's a bit of a misnomer to call it "Californian" art at that time, since the only thing Californian about it was the location; most of the artists seem to have been Europeans, trained in the grand French, German and Austrian ateliers, who had escaped to California, and all of them Impressionists of the first rank. The reproductions of their art are staggeringly beautiful and, to me, a hitherto undiscovered treasure-trove. Some of them returned later in life to make big money in Europe.The second part of the book is a survey of the work of the current membership of the CAC - and they are all pretty much impressionists, too, and equal to, if not in some cases exceeding their illustrious predecessors in virtuosity. There are a few familiar names amongst them that dilettantes like me will recognise from their how-to-do-it books or contributions to volumes of collected works. Within the state boundaries lie Death Valley, the 13,000ft Sierra Nevada Mountains which include the Yosemite National Park, and, of course, endless miles of beautiful coastline, all done full justice within these pages. Landscape is obviously the overwhelming theme, and one can readily see how it must have inspired the first arrivals (and continues to do so) although the modern works show the appropriate share of urban and harbour-scapes. Even scruffy urban is made to look beautiful.No volume of collected art could be more generous in its reproductions, by either size, number or quality. There are not just many full-page illustrations, but double-page spreads, too, and you cannot turn a single page without being greeted with yet another breathtaking work to make you cringe with admiration and envy. Indeed, the cover is not the example I would have chosen, although it may well reflect the Hollywood notion of California, which half the world seem to think is the capital. (It's actually Sacramento, where the CAC is based). The prose in the second part of the book does not match the quality of the paintings (how could it ?) and is something of a paean of praise for the CAC, but then they have plenty to boast about.You may think I am sounding too effusive. But if painterly impressionism be your thing, your world is not complete without this book.