Mercredi 16 mai 2012
Last update on 7/05/2012
Last update on 7/05/2012
The latest news in the History of Western Art from the Middle Ages to the 1930's
Gustave Moreau, Helen of Troy : Majestic Beauty 26/04/2012
Over the past few years, the Musée Gustave Moreau has organized exhibitions highlighting a particular aspect of the master’s art, a theme, a previously unexplored facet, a part of the immense oeuvre residing in this private residence on the rue de (...)
Maurice Denis, Eternal Spring 24/04/2012
Maurice Denis does not in any way correspond to the image of the doomed artist : not only was he Christian but he is also fashionably popular today (not always hand in hand ). After the retrospective staged by Orsay in 2007, a series of (...)
Cima da Conegliano. Master of the Venitian Renaissance 20/04/2012
Lorenzo Lotto, Le siècle de Titien, Splendeur de Venise or Titien, Tintoret, Véronese... Of all the Italian schools, the Venetian has always been the favorite of French museums for the major retrospectives staged over the recent past. At the very (...)
For the Love of Art. French Artists and Art Lovers in 18th century Rome 10/04/2012
Over the course of the 18th century, despite several exceptions, notably that of Venice, Italy’s artistic stardom began to fade and its dominance to recede in favor of French painting. For this reason, the history of French artists who traveled (...)
The Spirit of the Enlightenment Seen by Carmontelle 08/04/2012
"Those who did not live in the years around 1789 do not know the pleasure of life". Talleyrand’s famous statement to Guizot is perfectly illustrated by Carmontelle, the author of numerous small portraits of the so-called blessed society of the (...)
Eugeen Van Mieghem and the Port of Antwerp 06/04/2012
Far from the sight of waves splashing and sailboats bobbing in a marina, Eugeen Van Mieghem was fascinated rather by the activity in the industrial port of Antwerp. He spent his life trying to set down with brush and pencil what Emile Verhaeren (...)
From Seurat to Matisse, Henri-Edmond Cross and Neo-Impressionism 04/04/2012
Henri Edmond Cross, who died prematurely and childless, though he was a pillar of Neo-Impressionism, has been relatively ignored. Now, the exhibition at the Musée Matisse, in Le Cateau-Cambrésis after its stop at the Musée Marmottan from October (...)
An Intimate Universe. Paintings from the Frits Lugt Collection 04/04/2012
Famous for the quantity and quality of its old master drawings, the Frits Lugt collection also holds an ensemble of paintings which are currently being highlighted in an exhibition at the Institut néerlandais, following a campaign of restoration (...)
Artemesia 1593-1654 23/03/2012
Seeing an exhibition of 17th century Italian painting is such a rare occurrence in Paris that visitors should not miss the chance provided by the Musée Maillol, especially since this is a retrospective of a somewhat legendary artist, considered (...)
Turner Inspired : In the Light of Claude 16/03/2012
The trend in double exhibitions, even sometimes triple is becoming a bit wearisome. It appears easier - but is this really true ? - to attract crowds using two famous names instead of one, regardless of the actual artistic value of the (...)
The Napoleonic Wars. Louis François Lejeune, General and Painter 28/02/2012
Louis François Lejeune was adept at wielding the sword, the brush and the pen, putting them at the service of the Empire and his own, as attested by the almost 120 works deployed in the Africa and Crimea galleries at the château in Versailles : (...)
The Beyeler Foundation : Bonnard’s Imaginary House 27/02/2012
There’s no place like home, and Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947) has today, at least for a few months, settled in comfortably at the Beyeler Foundation, in Riehen near Basel. With a selection of 65 works, the curator of the exhibition, Ulf Küster, of (...)
Akseli Gallen-Kallela (1865-1931). A Finnish Passion 15/02/2012
Despite having studied and lived several times in France, made friends there, decorated the Finnish pavilion for the Exposition universelle of 1900 and participated in the Finnish exhibition for the Salon d’Automne in 1908, Gallen-Kallela has (...)
Feininger, from Manhattan to Bauhaus 06/02/2012
Torn between the violin, the drawing pencil and the paintbrush, between the United States where he was born, raised and died and Germany where he spent most of his career and achieved celebrity, Lyonel Feininger was a tormented artist who never (...)
Majolica. Italian Ceramics in the Humanist Age 03/02/2012
One of the best exhibitions this winter has fortunately been extended until 27 February, providing us with the possibility of making up for lost time and discussing it here at last. There is almost a month left for visitors to go see it in (...)
David d’Angers, the Faces of Romanticism 10/01/2012
In 1844, the Cabinet des médailles received David d’Angers’ donation of the entire set of original plaster casts for his medallions, which then joined the collections permanently after his death in 1856. These works, invaluable steps in the (...)
John Martin. Apocalypse. 13/12/2011
"The public wants to be treated like a woman, to whom you can only say what she likes to hear", Goethe said ; John Martin applied the same aphorism to his painting, conceiving catastrophic scenarios, of which the most spectacular are taken from (...)
Spanish Art between Two Centuries, from Zuloaga to Picasso (1890-1920) 09/12/2011
While Spanish paintings of the Golden Age are well represented in our most important museums, the history of art between Goya and Picasso often takes on the appearance of a mysterious ocean, interspersed with a few islands, unfamiliar to a wide (...)
Celebrating in the Golden Age 02/12/2011
Village fairs, carnivals, banquets, weddings, religious festivals... An unbridled joy is on display at the Frans Hals Museum currently exhibiting some forty-five paintings of the Dutch Golden Age on the theme of celebrating dear to Jan Steen (...)
Intimate Scenes. French Genre Painting between the Revolution and the Restoration 27/11/2011
The Musée des Augustins has chosen to approach the chaotic period between the French Revolution and the Restoration by way of genre painting. All of the canvases, some of which are unpublished, come exclusively from French collections, either (...)
The Dusseldorf School 22/11/2011
When German museums set up an exhibition, they usually do not do things halfway. After the sweeping retrospective on the Master of Naumburg which we discussed here, the current one on the Dusseldorf school, organized by the Kunstpalast which (...)
Boilly (1761-1845) 17/11/2011
“A great or a minor master ?” asks Jacques Foucart in a catalogue essay which raises many other questions as well. This is not the first time this one comes up and the Lille exhibition on Louis-Léopold Boilly, often reduced to the stature of a (...)
Leonardo da Vinci. Painter at the Court of Milan 13/11/2011
Nicholas Penny had announced there would be no more blockbuster exhibitions. The one now highlighting Leonardo da Vinci at the National Gallery is thus a bit paradoxical as one would be hard put to imagine a restrospective drawing larger crowds (...)
Daniel Sarrabat (1666-1748) 11/11/2011
A native of Lyon, who studied under Bon Boullogne and received the Grand Prix of the Académie Royale in France, Daniel Sarrabat was practically unknown before this retrospective in Bourg-en-Bresse, despite a very active career in Lyon and its (...)
Georges de Lastic. Le Cabinet d’un amateur, collectionneur et conservateur 18/02/2011
One man and two exhibitions, Georges de Lastic (1927-1988), a curator and collector, amply deserves this celebration in the two locations which distinctly marked his professional life. After graduating from the Ecole du Louvre, where he (...)
Segantini 16/02/2011
A very well known artist in Italy, Switzerland and Austria, Giovanni Segantini is still under estimated and practically unknown in France where, unless we are mistaken, his paintings cannot be found in any museum. Orsay owns a drawing and the (...)
L’Antiquité rêvée. Innovations et résistances au XVIIIe siècle 18/01/2011
The theme of the influence of Antiquity on the art of the second half of the 18th century, what is commonly called Neoclassicism, is treated often. This does not however detract from the fact that the exhibition at the Louvre is a resounding (...)
Henri IV à Fontainebleau. Un temps de splendeur 06/01/2011
Not much respect was shown for Henri IV three years ago during the restoration of the Cour des Offices carried out by the Monuments Historiques under the supervision of the chief architect Jacques Moulin. Although the damage is still very much (...)
L’univers de Lucas Cranach (1472-1553) 19/12/2010
There is absolutely no coincidence in the fact that the posters for the last three exhibitions highlighting Cranach offered passers-by a look at three willowy women in the artist’s signature rendition of nudity : the Royal Academy of Arts in (...)
Giuseppe De Nittis. Elégance moderne 17/12/2010
The Petit Palais has progressively made it a specialty to reveal or recall artists who are unknown or forgotten, at least to the general public : just in the last few years, there was the luminous painter Joaquin Sorolla, the highly original (...)
Heemskerck et l’Humanisme. Une œuvre à penser 10/12/2010
Despite occupying only two rooms, the exhibition Heemskerck and Humanis, created by Ilja Veldman, a specialist on Martin van Heemskerck and the curator Olivia Savatier is well worth an attentive (...)
Romantics 10/12/2010
The Tate collections are so extensive that it can effortlessly stage two simultaneous, and beautiful, exhibitions on related subjects – presenting paintings and drawings by some of the same artists in both. Clearly, the theme of the “sublime” (...)
Gauguin. Maker of Myth 07/12/2010
While Monet is showing at the Grand Palais (see article) under the care of Richard Thomson, his wife Belinda Thomson is the curator of the Gauguin retrospective at the Tate Modern, the first one ever organized in the United Kingdom, which is (...)
Images of a Capital – The Impressionists in Paris 05/12/2010
Between 1860 and 1900, Paris underwent transformations no other major European metropolis has known. Whole areas were totally demolished, disembowelled and rebuilt in the name of public health and ease of circulation. The controversial (...)
Tivoli. Variations on a landscape in the 18th century 03/12/2010
The Musée Cognac-Jay is currently offering a very pleasant exhibition, accompanied by a charming catalogue. The subject is an invitation to travel as the show attempts to illustrate how the small temple of the Sibyl in Tivoli influenced painters (...)
Bronzino. An artist and poet at the Medici court 01/12/2010
The Bronzino exhibition, one of the most beautiful at the moment, deserves a trip to Florence for anyone who can do so. He is of course known as one of the greatest painters of Renaissance Florence,that is simply, one of the greatest artists (...)
Claude Monet 16/11/2010
« How strange and what a coincidence » would say the Martins in Ionesco’s The Bald-Headed Soprano. The RMN and the musée d’Orsay announced the great Monet retrospective two years ago, so it seems indeed curious that Jacques Taddei, an eminent (...)
Art and the Sublime 13/11/2010
Along with major shows, often based on prestigious loans from internationally acclaimed establishments intended for sell-out crowds drawn by extensive advertising campaigns, the Tate Gallery presents “in-house” exhibitions with little media (...)
Jean-Léon Gérôme 12/11/2010
With the Cabanel retrospective still on in Montpellier, the Musée d’Orsay is highlighting Jean-Léon Gérôme while also presenting an exhibition on Claude Monet at the Grand Palais. This is no coincidence, simply proof that French museums are finally (...)
Louis Cretey. A visionary artist between Lyon and Rome 30/10/2010
This is one of the most interesting and innovative exhibitions currently showing in France. True, art specialists along with a few enlightened amateurs already knew Louis Cretey. But, with the exception of perhaps Michel Descours, the (...)
Chardin. The painter of silence 28/10/2010
Going to Ferrara to see Chardin may seem a bit strange. He is not the first artist who comes to mind when thinking of this city. But it is precisely this gap in perception, helping Italians discover someone who is unknown and perhaps (...)
Venice. Canaletto and his Rivals 25/10/2010
I admit I went to the National Gallery dragging my feet a little. I have never been particularly enamoured of Canaletto, nor of Venetian view painting in general, their paintings seeming at times very repetitive and in many cases mediocre. This (...)
Rubens, Poussin et les peintres du XVIIe siècle 18/10/2010
The exhibition at the Musée Jacquemart-André will no doubt confuse more than one art historian for its subject. In fact, it is so original that it has us quite perplexed. The exhibition’s main goal is “to provide an account of the importance of (...)
La Russie romantique. Chefs-d’œuvre de la galerie nationale Tretiakov Moscou 17/10/2010
The Musée de la Vie Romantique does not always stay on the beaten path. This time, it is offering a very instructive exhibition on Russian Romantic artists, a subject which is still relatively unknown in France. All of the works come from the (...)
L’art hollandais au musée Condé 06/10/2010
The Musée Condé is offering a closer look at its collection of Dutch paintings and drawings for its autumn show. While the latter were entirely catalogued nine years ago, the paintings had not all been published yet. This has now been completed (...)
Alexandre Cabanel 1823-1889. La tradition du beau 30/09/2010
The Musée Fabre continues to make essential contributions to art history through its exhibitions. Thanks to this establishment several important artists now boast a reference work, published in accompaniment to a thorough retrospective of their (...)
It’s not every day that an old master we barely knew resurfaces in the art world. Thanks to the Canesso Gallery which is exhibiting practically all of his work until 6 November, the Maestro della tela jeans has now reappeared and can assume his (...)
Close Examination : Fakes, Mistakes and Discoveries 20/08/2010
When he was first appointed as head of the National Gallery, Nicholas Penny had stated that he planned to limit the number of blockbuster exhibitions, notably for economic reasons. After Delaroche, the London museum continues to pursue this (...)
Visit to Folkwang Museum 23/06/2010
This year, Essen, once the heart of the industrial Ruhr, is Cultural Capital of Europe. To mark the event, the Museum Folkwang has put on an ambitious exhibition, “The Most Beautiful Museum in the World.” Its aim : to reunite, if only for a (...)
Paolo Domenico Finoglio. La Jérusalem délivrée 23/06/2010
At the same time that Toulouse is highlighting Verrio (see article), the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Lille is currently offering another unfamiliar 18th century Italian painter. This coincidence deserves our attention as museum initiatives which (...)
