-
Rodin
- A Biography
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 27 hrs
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy for $31.47
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Rodin's Lover
- A Novel
- By: Heather Webb
- Narrated by: Kate Reading
- Length: 12 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A mesmerizing tale of art and passion in Belle Époque France. As a woman, aspiring sculptor Camille Claudel has plenty of critics, especially her ultra-traditional mother. But when Auguste Rodin makes Camille his apprentice - and his muse - their passion inspires groundbreaking works. Yet Camille’s success is overshadowed by her lover’s rising star, and her obsessions cross the line into madness. Rodin’s Lover brings to life the volatile love affair between one of the era’s greatest artists and a woman entwined in a tragic dilemma she cannot escape.
-
-
Herstory unvarnished.
- By Amazon Customer on 03-06-22
By: Heather Webb
-
Mad Enchantment
- Claude Monet and the Painting of the Water Lilies
- By: Ross King
- Narrated by: Joel Richards
- Length: 11 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We have all seen, whether live, in photographs or on postcards, some of Claude Monet's legendary water lily paintings. They are in museums all over the world and are among the most beloved works of art of the past century. Yet, ironically, these soothing images were created amid terrible personal turmoil and sadness.
-
-
Wonderful book. Awful awful narration.
- By Stephanie Croquez on 06-23-17
By: Ross King
-
The Lives of the Artists
- By: Giorgio Vasari, Julia Conway Bondanella - Translated by, Peter Bondanella - Translated by
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 22 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
These biographies of the great quattrocento artists have long been considered among the most important of contemporary sources on Italian Renaissance art. Vasari, who invented the term "Renaissance", was the first to outline the influential theory of Renaissance art that traces a progression through Giotto, Brunelleschi, and finally the titanic figures of Michaelangelo, Da Vinci, and Raphael.
-
-
Awesome
- By Daniel on 05-17-19
By: Giorgio Vasari, and others
-
Van Gogh
- The Life
- By: Steven Naifeh, Gregory White Smith
- Narrated by: Paul Heitsch
- Length: 44 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Working with the full cooperation of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith have accessed a wealth of previously untapped materials. While drawing liberally from the artist's famously eloquent letters, they have also delved into hundreds of unpublished family correspondences, illuminating with poignancy the wanderings of Van Gogh's troubled, restless soul. Naifeh and Smith bring a crucial understanding to the larger-than-life mythology of this great artist.
-
-
Empathy for a True Artist
- By Sojourning Hope on 05-04-21
By: Steven Naifeh, and others
-
Picasso and the Painting That Shocked the World
- By: Miles J. Unger
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 15 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1900, an 18-year-old Spaniard named Pablo Picasso made his first trip to Paris. It was in this glittering capital of the international art world that, after suffering years of poverty and neglect, he emerged as the leader of a bohemian band of painters, sculptors, and poets. Fueled by opium and alcohol, inspired by raucous late-night conversations at the Lapin Agile cabaret, Picasso and his friends resolved to shake up the world.
-
-
An Excellent Text
- By Josh Lammers on 04-04-19
By: Miles J. Unger
-
Leonardo da Vinci
- By: Walter Isaacson
- Narrated by: Alfred Molina
- Length: 17 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Leonardo da Vinci created the two most famous paintings in history, The Last Supper and the Mona Lisa. But in his own mind, he was just as much a man of science and engineering. With a passion that sometimes became obsessive, he pursued innovative studies of anatomy, fossils, birds, the heart, flying machines, botany, geology, and weaponry.
-
-
Wish the sample was not from the preface!
- By Chris M. on 11-13-17
By: Walter Isaacson
-
Rodin's Lover
- A Novel
- By: Heather Webb
- Narrated by: Kate Reading
- Length: 12 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A mesmerizing tale of art and passion in Belle Époque France. As a woman, aspiring sculptor Camille Claudel has plenty of critics, especially her ultra-traditional mother. But when Auguste Rodin makes Camille his apprentice - and his muse - their passion inspires groundbreaking works. Yet Camille’s success is overshadowed by her lover’s rising star, and her obsessions cross the line into madness. Rodin’s Lover brings to life the volatile love affair between one of the era’s greatest artists and a woman entwined in a tragic dilemma she cannot escape.
-
-
Herstory unvarnished.
- By Amazon Customer on 03-06-22
By: Heather Webb
-
Mad Enchantment
- Claude Monet and the Painting of the Water Lilies
- By: Ross King
- Narrated by: Joel Richards
- Length: 11 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We have all seen, whether live, in photographs or on postcards, some of Claude Monet's legendary water lily paintings. They are in museums all over the world and are among the most beloved works of art of the past century. Yet, ironically, these soothing images were created amid terrible personal turmoil and sadness.
-
-
Wonderful book. Awful awful narration.
- By Stephanie Croquez on 06-23-17
By: Ross King
-
The Lives of the Artists
- By: Giorgio Vasari, Julia Conway Bondanella - Translated by, Peter Bondanella - Translated by
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 22 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
These biographies of the great quattrocento artists have long been considered among the most important of contemporary sources on Italian Renaissance art. Vasari, who invented the term "Renaissance", was the first to outline the influential theory of Renaissance art that traces a progression through Giotto, Brunelleschi, and finally the titanic figures of Michaelangelo, Da Vinci, and Raphael.
-
-
Awesome
- By Daniel on 05-17-19
By: Giorgio Vasari, and others
-
Van Gogh
- The Life
- By: Steven Naifeh, Gregory White Smith
- Narrated by: Paul Heitsch
- Length: 44 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Working with the full cooperation of the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith have accessed a wealth of previously untapped materials. While drawing liberally from the artist's famously eloquent letters, they have also delved into hundreds of unpublished family correspondences, illuminating with poignancy the wanderings of Van Gogh's troubled, restless soul. Naifeh and Smith bring a crucial understanding to the larger-than-life mythology of this great artist.
-
-
Empathy for a True Artist
- By Sojourning Hope on 05-04-21
By: Steven Naifeh, and others
-
Picasso and the Painting That Shocked the World
- By: Miles J. Unger
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 15 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1900, an 18-year-old Spaniard named Pablo Picasso made his first trip to Paris. It was in this glittering capital of the international art world that, after suffering years of poverty and neglect, he emerged as the leader of a bohemian band of painters, sculptors, and poets. Fueled by opium and alcohol, inspired by raucous late-night conversations at the Lapin Agile cabaret, Picasso and his friends resolved to shake up the world.
-
-
An Excellent Text
- By Josh Lammers on 04-04-19
By: Miles J. Unger
-
Leonardo da Vinci
- By: Walter Isaacson
- Narrated by: Alfred Molina
- Length: 17 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Leonardo da Vinci created the two most famous paintings in history, The Last Supper and the Mona Lisa. But in his own mind, he was just as much a man of science and engineering. With a passion that sometimes became obsessive, he pursued innovative studies of anatomy, fossils, birds, the heart, flying machines, botany, geology, and weaponry.
-
-
Wish the sample was not from the preface!
- By Chris M. on 11-13-17
By: Walter Isaacson
-
Caravaggio
- A Life Sacred and Profane
- By: Andrew Graham-Dixon
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 18 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the tradition of John Richardson's Picasso, a commanding new biography of the Italian master's tumultuous life and mysterious death. For four hundred years Caravaggio's (1571-1610) staggering artistic achievements have thrilled viewers, yet his volatile personal trajectory - the murder of Ranuccio Tomasini, the doubt surrounding Caravaggio's sexuality, the chain of events that began with his imprisonment on Malta and ended with his premature death - has long confounded historians.
-
-
Interesting life
- By Jean on 08-28-13
-
Warhol
- By: Blake Gopnik
- Narrated by: Graham Halstead
- Length: 43 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
To this day, mention the name “Andy Warhol” to almost anyone and you’ll hear about his famous images of soup cans and Marilyn Monroe. But though Pop Art became synonymous with Warhol’s name and dominated the public’s image of him, his life and work are infinitely more complex and multifaceted than that. In Warhol, esteemed art critic Blake Gopnik takes on Andy Warhol in all his depth and dimensions.
-
-
Explaining an Enigma
- By Keith on 05-05-20
By: Blake Gopnik
-
Napoleon
- A Life
- By: Andrew Roberts
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 32 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Andrew Roberts' Napoleon is the first one-volume biography to take advantage of the recent publication of Napoleon's thirty-three thousand letters, which radically transform our understanding of his character and motivation. At last we see him as he was: protean multitasker, decisive, surprisingly willing to forgive his enemies and his errant wife Josephine.
-
-
What a dynamo!
- By Tad Davis on 01-16-15
By: Andrew Roberts
-
John
- By: Cynthia Lennon, Julian Lennon
- Narrated by: Rosalyn Landor, Julian Lennon, Cynthia Lennon
- Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In John, Cynthia recalls those times with the loving honesty of an insider, offering new and fascinating insights into the life of John Lennon and the early days of the Beatles. And with the perspective only years can provide, she also tells the compelling story of her marriage to a man who was to become a music legend, a cultural hero, and a defining figure of the 20th century.
-
-
Great book, even if Paul was your favorite.
- By Mick on 10-09-05
By: Cynthia Lennon, and others
-
Modern Man in Search of a Soul
- By: Carl Jung
- Narrated by: Christopher Prince
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Modern Man in Search of a Soul is the classic introduction to the thought of Carl Jung. Along with Freud and Adler, Jung was one of the chief founders of modern psychiatry. In this book, Jung examines some of the most contested and crucial areas in the field of analytical psychology: dream analysis, the primitive unconscious, and the relationship between psychology and religion.
-
-
Could have almost been an automated text reader
- By Chicken Love on 04-24-15
By: Carl Jung
-
The Snowball
- Warren Buffett and the Business of Life
- By: Alice Schroeder
- Narrated by: Kirsten Potter
- Length: 36 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Here is THE book recounting the life and times of one of the most respected men in the world, Warren Buffett. The legendary Omaha investor has never written a memoir, but now he has allowed one writer, Alice Schroeder, unprecedented access to explore directly with him and with those closest to him his work, opinions, struggles, triumphs, follies, and wisdom. The result is the personally revealing and complete biography of the man known everywhere as "The Oracle of Omaha."
-
-
2,220 well-invested minutes!
- By BogKid on 01-07-09
By: Alice Schroeder
-
The Club
- Johnson, Boswell, and the Friends Who Shaped an Age
- By: Leo Damrosch
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 15 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1763, the painter Joshua Reynolds proposed to his friend Samuel Johnson that they invite a few friends to join them every Friday at the Turk's Head Tavern in London to dine, drink, and talk until midnight. Eventually, the group came to include among its members Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, Edward Gibbon, and James Boswell. It was known simply as "the Club". In this captivating audiobook, Leo Damrosch brings alive a brilliant, competitive, and eccentric cast of characters.
-
-
Wonderful survey
- By Tad Davis on 05-10-19
By: Leo Damrosch
-
Genius of Michelangelo
- By: William E. Wallace, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: William E. Wallace
- Length: 17 hrs and 56 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Genius of Michelangelo, internationally recognized Michelangelo expert and award-winning Professor of Art History William E. Wallace gives you a comprehensive perspective on one of history's greatest artists, unavailable in any other course. Drawing on a vast command of artistic knowledge and period detail, these 36 intellectually rewarding and dazzling lectures explore the relationship between truth and legend to reveal a groundbreaking new picture of Michelangelo as an artist, a businessman, an aristocrat, and a genius.
-
-
Very good, but . . .
- By Mallard on 07-12-20
By: William E. Wallace, and others
-
The Great Gatsby
- By: F. Scott Fitzgerald
- Narrated by: Jake Gyllenhaal
- Length: 4 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic American novel of the Roaring Twenties is beloved by generations of readers and stands as his crowning work. This new audio edition, authorized by the Fitzgerald estate, is narrated by Oscar-nominated actor Jake Gyllenhaal (Brokeback Mountain). Gyllenhaal's performance is a faithful delivery in the voice of Nick Carraway, the Midwesterner turned New York bond salesman, who rents a small house next door to the mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby....
-
-
Simple, Beautiful, and Exquisitely Textured
- By Darwin8u on 04-09-13
-
Michelangelo, God's Architect
- The Story of His Final Years and Greatest Masterpiece
- By: William E. Wallace
- Narrated by: Simon Callow
- Length: 8 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Michelangelo, God's Architect is the first book to tell the full story of Michelangelo's final two decades, when the peerless artist refashioned himself into the master architect of St. Peter’s Basilica and other major buildings. When the Pope handed Michelangelo control of the St. Peter’s project in 1546, it was a study in architectural mismanagement, plagued by flawed design and faulty engineering.
-
-
Michelangelo, architect, urban designer, artist
- By Marco on 09-16-20
-
Catherine de Medici
- Renaissance Queen of France
- By: Leonie Frieda
- Narrated by: Sarah Le Fevre
- Length: 21 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Poisoner, despot, necromancer - the dark legend of Catherine de Medici is centuries old. In this critically hailed biography, Leonie Frieda reclaims the story of this unjustly maligned queen to reveal a skilled ruler battling extraordinary political and personal odds - from a troubled childhood in Florence to her marriage to Henry, son of King Francis I of France; from her transformation of French culture to her fight to protect her throne and her sons' birthright. Based on thousands of private letters, it is a remarkable account of one of the most influential women to wear a crown.
-
-
Narrator didn't get one name right
- By Georgina García- Menocal on 09-15-19
By: Leonie Frieda
-
The Greater Journey
- Americans in Paris
- By: David McCullough
- Narrated by: Edward Herrmann
- Length: 16 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Greater Journey is the enthralling, inspiring—and until now, untold—story of the adventurous American artists, writers, doctors, politicians, architects, and others of high aspiration who set off for Paris in the years between 1830 and 1900, ambitious to excel in their work.
-
-
McCullough takes it to the next level
- By gregory m loyd on 07-12-11
By: David McCullough
Publisher's Summary
Rodin's crucial love affair with his pupil, Camille Claudel, emerges here in all its tragic complexity, as do his relationships with the British painter Gwen John and the American-born duchess Claire de Choiseul. Grunfeld also sheds new light on Rodin's friendships with some of the most gifted writers and artists of the day, from Robert Louis Stevenson and George Bernard Shaw to Emile Zola and James McNeill Whistler.
Critic Reviews
"A consistently absorbing story....A rewarding and illuminating book." (The New York Times)
"Religiously researched and gracefully written....Grunfeld will set a biographical standard for years to come." (The Boston Globe)
More from the same
Narrator
What listeners say about Rodin
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Chrissie
- 01-15-15
Too much humor to be a textbook!
ETA:I always forget something!!! So, I am adding this. There is more humor than just that of the different opinions of Rodin's artwork, its sexuality, its cut morceaux and interchanged titles. In one of the studios Rodin had no doors on the apprentices' rooms. Pets were free to come and go. What about a Newfoundland sleeping next to you in your bed?! This was a huge surprise to one new apprentice. There is no way this book can be judged as a textbook, even if it is chock-full of details. These details are what make the book good. You see I am still thinking about this delightful and informative book.
************************************
I picked up this book because I wanted to understand the personality of the sculptor Auguste Rodin (1840-1917). I definitely got that from this book. I also got a comprehensive study of all his busts, monuments, drawings and sculptures. The book is filled with quotes, which are extensively noted. (In the audiobook these notes are read as they come up.) You hear both complimentary and negative views on the artist and his artwork. The story moves forward chronologically, thus you see how his personality changed with time. You see how his artwork changed and how the world around him changed. You learn what it was that made Rodin Rodin and which aspects of his personality never changed.
There is humor, particularly when you listen to the different views voiced. Night and day. Lovers and haters. The author rarely comments on what others say, but both positive and negative views are voiced.
I don't know where to start. It seems hopeless to say in a few words what makes Rodin Rodin. He was a man that saw the beauty of women and he appreciated their sexuality, though the word “appreciate” is just so lacking in passion! Rodin further convinces me that although artists are wonderful, they are impossible to live with. All his life he had affairs with numerous women, but he never left his first love Rose. He married her on his deathbed..... and within a year both were dead. He never acknowledged their son.
The techniques Rodin employed in producing his artwork is also discussed. When he drew his eyes never looked at the paper; they were glued to that being drawn. He added pieces of clay more often than extracting pieces. He constantly altered. He wouldn’t stop until he was satisfied. He loved nature and saw it in a finger, a hand, an arm, in movement and stillness; in shadow and sun. And the names of his artwork, he changed them over and over again. The name was not the essential.
This book is for me a clear four star book. I don't see it as a text book; it is too interesting and too amusing. Parts are scandalous, and the uproar that ensues is exciting! BUT, the book is extremely comprehensive and much is illustrated through copious quotes. The book not only teaches about Rodin but also the entire art world of the latter 19th Century and the first 17 years of the 20th. Very many artists and musicians and authors are covered - just about all the ones you can possibly think of and then add many, many more which you have never heard of! At times I got lost, when I didn't recognize enough of the names. As usual, the more you know before picking up a book, the more you will enjoy the details. You have something to fasten on to.
Now a word about the narration by the famed Simon Vance. I thought Vance could read anything. Here his narration was a total disappointment. In fact I was often extremely annoyed. His French just plain sucks. Sorry for being so darn blunt, but there is the truth. He mispronounces French words, and there are lots of them. I would have to try and guess what he could possibly be trying to say. Cities and known artists are almost unrecognizable. Maybe I would have recognized more of the artists if I had been given proper pronunciations. Reims sounds like "reams" rhyming with "seams". The correct pronunciation is closer to "ranse". I am just mentioning ONE example! Rodin spent seven years in Brussels. Vance's pronunciations are so incorrect it totally threw me. I know Brussels! I have lived there. He also uses different pronunciations for the very same word, so it is difficult to "translate" what he could possible mean. I absolutely hated the lousy narration. I will never listen to another book by Vance if he has to speak French words. Never. Do you hear how annoyed I am? IF you want to make an audiobook version of a written book that has many French words, then get someone who speaks French properly! Four stars is for the written book, not the audiobook narrated by Simon Vance.
5 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Doc
- 03-04-13
Vance doesn't do Grunfeld justice.
If you could sum up Rodin in three words, what would they be?
poverty chauvinism lasciviousness
What was one of the most memorable moments of Rodin?
In their twenties, Rose would pose for Rodin for hours.
They would return home to an apartment with neither food nor heat and sleep.
What do you think the narrator could have done better?
Vance has poor French pronunciation. When I was a student at the Sorbonne,
I also studied at the Alliance Francaise to converse fluently. In addition I am a graduate of L'Universite de la Phonetique a Paris.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
No, it is quite long but full of many valuable facts about France, artists and the extremely complex and interesting politics among the artists.
Any additional comments?
I recomment the book but the French is very substandard. I have taught French for years.
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Samuel Knepler
- 05-05-19
Technical Difficulties
There was quite a bit of skipping!! It's written well but the glitching was frustrating.
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Shawn
- 02-07-16
Boring
Don't waste your credits. Nothing new here and nothing to keep you listening. If you know something about Rodin this will not interest you as there is nothing new and if you know nothing about Rodin you will just find this a boring listen.
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Kelly
- 01-24-14
To much like a text book
Any additional comments?
I really like Simon Vance but this book was just to much like a text book with footnotes in the middle of a sentence. Simon french is beautiful but there is so much french that I was having trouble following it. Didn't get far before I just gave up. If you like stories about artist and you like sculptors I suggest the Agony & Ecstasy (about michaelangelo). Its a great listen/
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- The Flash Fiction Ponder
- 12-23-17
Thorough In Body, A Little Lacking In Soul.
Upon learning about the life of Rodin one cannot help but desire to see his works in person. A lot of detail in some areas, not so much in others. His childhood was pretty much just skimmed over, and it would have been great if the reader, or in this case the listener, was given better insight into the artist's process, to get a better sense of that actual magic in creating. Perhaps not enough information was available on these two matters. Again, sometimes too much detail on insignificant things, not enough on other areas, like with Rodin's loyal companion Rose. How was her life while he was off travelling, womanizing, etc. Knowing more of her would have made their end more powerful. The recording is fine up until the last three chapters, at which time there's quite a bit of skipping, but not enough to make it a bad buy. Overall worth the purchase.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Timothy L. Schriever
- 03-14-16
Inspiring
Inspires me to kneed some clay, create a portrait, sculpt a hand, hire a model and create art through the truth of nature.
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- L. Fry
- 12-20-21
Cringe-worthy French pronunciations
Why choose a narrator who can't pronounce French words to read the biography of a French artist? I winced too many times while listening to this lengthy book. Especially over the frequency of the term "bas-relief" sculpture, which Vance pronounces as "bass-relief." Oy.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- K. Augustine
- 08-17-20
Rodin bio audiobook comments
The potential listener should be informed that although the reader’s performance was well done, there are frequent annoying background voices that negatively impact the experience.
Related to this topic
-
The Greater Journey
- Americans in Paris
- By: David McCullough
- Narrated by: Edward Herrmann
- Length: 16 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Greater Journey is the enthralling, inspiring—and until now, untold—story of the adventurous American artists, writers, doctors, politicians, architects, and others of high aspiration who set off for Paris in the years between 1830 and 1900, ambitious to excel in their work.
-
-
McCullough takes it to the next level
- By gregory m loyd on 07-12-11
By: David McCullough
-
Fryderyk Chopin
- A Life and Times
- By: Dr. Alan Walker
- Narrated by: Corrie James
- Length: 23 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Based on 10 years of research and a vast cache of primary sources located in archives in Warsaw, Paris, London, New York, and Washington, D.C., Alan Walker's monumental Fryderyk Chopin: A Life and Times is the most comprehensive biography of the great Polish composer to appear in English in more than a century. Walker's work is a corrective biography, intended to dispel the many myths and legends that continue to surround Chopin.
-
-
This book is a masterpiece
- By Carpe Diem on 02-09-19
By: Dr. Alan Walker
-
Mad Enchantment
- Claude Monet and the Painting of the Water Lilies
- By: Ross King
- Narrated by: Joel Richards
- Length: 11 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We have all seen, whether live, in photographs or on postcards, some of Claude Monet's legendary water lily paintings. They are in museums all over the world and are among the most beloved works of art of the past century. Yet, ironically, these soothing images were created amid terrible personal turmoil and sadness.
-
-
Wonderful book. Awful awful narration.
- By Stephanie Croquez on 06-23-17
By: Ross King
-
The Art of Rivalry
- Four Friendships, Betrayals, and Breakthroughs in Modern Art
- By: Sebastian Smee
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 10 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Rivalry is at the heart of some of the most famous and fruitful relationships in history. The Art of Rivalry follows eight celebrated artists, each linked to a counterpart by friendship, admiration, envy, and ambition. All eight are household names today. But to achieve what they did, each needed the influence of a contemporary - one who was equally ambitious but who possessed sharply contrasting strengths and weaknesses.
-
-
Death by bob souer
- By SKWAD on 01-18-18
By: Sebastian Smee
-
Picasso and the Painting That Shocked the World
- By: Miles J. Unger
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 15 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1900, an 18-year-old Spaniard named Pablo Picasso made his first trip to Paris. It was in this glittering capital of the international art world that, after suffering years of poverty and neglect, he emerged as the leader of a bohemian band of painters, sculptors, and poets. Fueled by opium and alcohol, inspired by raucous late-night conversations at the Lapin Agile cabaret, Picasso and his friends resolved to shake up the world.
-
-
An Excellent Text
- By Josh Lammers on 04-04-19
By: Miles J. Unger
-
In Montmartre
- Picasso, Matisse and the Birth of Modernist Art
- By: Sue Roe
- Narrated by: Emma Bering
- Length: 12 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A lively and deeply researched group biography of the figures who transformed the world of art in bohemian Paris in the first decade of the 20th century. In Montmartre is a colorful history of the birth of Modernist art as it arose from one of the most astonishing collections of artistic talent ever assembled. It begins in October 1900, as a teenage Pablo Picasso, eager for fame and fortune, first makes his way up the hillside of Paris’s famous windmill-topped district.
-
-
Florid narrative history with suspect details
- By Keith on 10-30-19
By: Sue Roe
-
The Greater Journey
- Americans in Paris
- By: David McCullough
- Narrated by: Edward Herrmann
- Length: 16 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Greater Journey is the enthralling, inspiring—and until now, untold—story of the adventurous American artists, writers, doctors, politicians, architects, and others of high aspiration who set off for Paris in the years between 1830 and 1900, ambitious to excel in their work.
-
-
McCullough takes it to the next level
- By gregory m loyd on 07-12-11
By: David McCullough
-
Fryderyk Chopin
- A Life and Times
- By: Dr. Alan Walker
- Narrated by: Corrie James
- Length: 23 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Based on 10 years of research and a vast cache of primary sources located in archives in Warsaw, Paris, London, New York, and Washington, D.C., Alan Walker's monumental Fryderyk Chopin: A Life and Times is the most comprehensive biography of the great Polish composer to appear in English in more than a century. Walker's work is a corrective biography, intended to dispel the many myths and legends that continue to surround Chopin.
-
-
This book is a masterpiece
- By Carpe Diem on 02-09-19
By: Dr. Alan Walker
-
Mad Enchantment
- Claude Monet and the Painting of the Water Lilies
- By: Ross King
- Narrated by: Joel Richards
- Length: 11 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
We have all seen, whether live, in photographs or on postcards, some of Claude Monet's legendary water lily paintings. They are in museums all over the world and are among the most beloved works of art of the past century. Yet, ironically, these soothing images were created amid terrible personal turmoil and sadness.
-
-
Wonderful book. Awful awful narration.
- By Stephanie Croquez on 06-23-17
By: Ross King
-
The Art of Rivalry
- Four Friendships, Betrayals, and Breakthroughs in Modern Art
- By: Sebastian Smee
- Narrated by: Bob Souer
- Length: 10 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Rivalry is at the heart of some of the most famous and fruitful relationships in history. The Art of Rivalry follows eight celebrated artists, each linked to a counterpart by friendship, admiration, envy, and ambition. All eight are household names today. But to achieve what they did, each needed the influence of a contemporary - one who was equally ambitious but who possessed sharply contrasting strengths and weaknesses.
-
-
Death by bob souer
- By SKWAD on 01-18-18
By: Sebastian Smee
-
Picasso and the Painting That Shocked the World
- By: Miles J. Unger
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 15 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1900, an 18-year-old Spaniard named Pablo Picasso made his first trip to Paris. It was in this glittering capital of the international art world that, after suffering years of poverty and neglect, he emerged as the leader of a bohemian band of painters, sculptors, and poets. Fueled by opium and alcohol, inspired by raucous late-night conversations at the Lapin Agile cabaret, Picasso and his friends resolved to shake up the world.
-
-
An Excellent Text
- By Josh Lammers on 04-04-19
By: Miles J. Unger
-
In Montmartre
- Picasso, Matisse and the Birth of Modernist Art
- By: Sue Roe
- Narrated by: Emma Bering
- Length: 12 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A lively and deeply researched group biography of the figures who transformed the world of art in bohemian Paris in the first decade of the 20th century. In Montmartre is a colorful history of the birth of Modernist art as it arose from one of the most astonishing collections of artistic talent ever assembled. It begins in October 1900, as a teenage Pablo Picasso, eager for fame and fortune, first makes his way up the hillside of Paris’s famous windmill-topped district.
-
-
Florid narrative history with suspect details
- By Keith on 10-30-19
By: Sue Roe
-
Ninth Street Women
- Lee Krasner, Elaine de Kooning, Grace Hartigan, Joan Mitchell, and Helen Frankenthaler: Five Painters and the Movement That Changed Modern Art
- By: Mary Gabriel
- Narrated by: Lisa Stathoplos
- Length: 40 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Five women revolutionize the modern art world in postwar America in this "gratifying, generous, and lush" true story from a National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize finalist (Jennifer Szalai, New York Times). Set amid the most turbulent social and political period of modern times, Ninth Street Women is the impassioned, wild, sometimes tragic, always exhilarating chronicle of five women who dared to enter the male-dominated world of 20th-century abstract painting - not as muses but as artists.
-
-
Painful pronunciation issues!
- By Curious Reader on 05-20-19
By: Mary Gabriel
-
When Paris Sizzled
- The 1920s Paris of Hemingway, Chanel, Cocteau, Cole Porter, Josephine Baker, and Their Friends
- By: Mary McAuliffe
- Narrated by: Saskia Maarleveld
- Length: 11 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Paris Sizzled vividly portrays the City of Light during the fabulous 1920s, les Annees folles, when Parisians emerged from the horrors of war to find that a new world greeted them - one that reverberated with the hard metallic clang of the assembly line, the roar of automobiles, and the beat of jazz. Mary McAuliffe traces a decade that saw seismic change on almost every front, from art and architecture to music, literature, fashion, entertainment, transportation, and, most notably, behavior.
-
-
Informative, but no sizzle
- By OzEnigma on 06-01-17
By: Mary McAuliffe
-
Peggy Guggenheim
- The Shock of the Modern
- By: Francine Prose
- Narrated by: Carrington MacDuffie
- Length: 6 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Acclaimed best-selling author Francine Prose offers a listen of Guggenheim's life that will enthrall enthusiasts of 21st-century art as well as anyone interested in American and European culture and the interrelationships between them. The lively and insightful narrative follows Guggenheim through virtually every aspect of her extraordinary life, from her unique collecting habits and paradigm-changing discoveries to her celebrity friendships, failed marriages, and scandalous affairs.
-
-
Good listen
- By Amazon Customer on 05-04-21
By: Francine Prose
-
The Club
- Johnson, Boswell, and the Friends Who Shaped an Age
- By: Leo Damrosch
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 15 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In 1763, the painter Joshua Reynolds proposed to his friend Samuel Johnson that they invite a few friends to join them every Friday at the Turk's Head Tavern in London to dine, drink, and talk until midnight. Eventually, the group came to include among its members Edmund Burke, Adam Smith, Edward Gibbon, and James Boswell. It was known simply as "the Club". In this captivating audiobook, Leo Damrosch brings alive a brilliant, competitive, and eccentric cast of characters.
-
-
Wonderful survey
- By Tad Davis on 05-10-19
By: Leo Damrosch
-
Edith Wharton
- By: Hermione Lee
- Narrated by: Kate Reading
- Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With profound empathy and insight, Hermione Lee brilliantly interweaves Wharton's life with the evolution of her writing, the full scope of which shows her to be far more daring than her stereotype as lapidarian chronicler of the Gilded Age. In its revelation of both the woman and the writer, Edith Wharton is a landmark biography.
-
-
Gardens Over Great Novels
- By Aaron Elliott on 04-26-07
By: Hermione Lee
-
Secrets of the Flesh
- A Life of Colette
- By: Judith Thurman
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 25 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A scandalously talented stage performer, a practiced seductress of both men and women, and the flamboyant author of some of the greatest works of 20th-century literature, Colette was our first true superstar. Now, in Judith Thurman's Secrets of the Flesh, Colette at last has a biography worthy of her dazzling reputation.
-
-
More than just a biography
- By Phip Herrick on 04-22-21
By: Judith Thurman
-
The Mistress of Paris
- The 19th-Century Courtesan Who Built an Empire on a Secret
- By: Catherine Hewitt
- Narrated by: Sarah Nichols
- Length: 9 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Comtesse Valtesse de la Bigne was painted by Édouard Manet and inspired Émile Zola, who immortalized her in his scandalous novel Nana. Her rumored affairs with Napoleon III and the future King Edward VII kept gossip columns full. But her glamorous existence hid a dark secret: She was no comtesse. She was born into abject poverty, raised on a squalid backstreet among the dregs of Parisian society. Yet she transformed herself into an enchantress.
-
-
Loved, listened to it three times.
- By Lillith on 06-21-17
By: Catherine Hewitt