Organizing an exhibition on Renaissance portraits is an almost impossible mission. The subject is too general, often highlighted (like recently at Capodimonte in Naples), and the works are difficult to assemble given their fragile status or their importance to the museums which own them which balk (or should do so) at the idea of letting them go.  continue

Should private collections be exhibited at the Louvre? The answer is certainly yes when they are of museum quality. This was the case for the Louis-Antoine Prat and also the des Motais from Narbonne which will be shown in the spring  continue

Alfred Stevens (Brussels, 1823-Paris, 1906) is still the most Parisian of the Belgian painters. His career during the second half of the 19th century was exceptionally successful and was closely linked to the figure of Parisian women during the Second Empire, elegant, distant and intriguing whose mystery and beauty he was able to capture in his work.  continue

This is the first time that such an extensive exhibition on the Italian Renaissance has ever been organized in Hungary. This type of retrospective often is cause for skepticism, as it tends to cover too wide a field on already well-known questions and presents fragile works, a point which should thus be taken into account in making a fair evaluation.  continue

The goal of the exhibition organized at the Musée Cantini is to understand the relationship between theatre and painting from the second half of the 18th century to the early 20th. This is probably one of the most difficult shows to review among the many hundreds already covered on this website. Readers beware, we will in fact have many good but also many bad things to say about it.  continue

The Sacred Made Real is a result of Xavier Bray’s enthusiasm and perseverance. Curator of Spanish Paintings at the National Gallery in London, he is naturally the curator of this exhibition, immediately described as “mystic” by the public, and which can be approached from several angles. First of all, it works as a touchstone, offering a major contribution to the history of Spanish religious painting after the Council of Trent, in an attempt to do away with certain clichés too often bandied about, by bringing together thirty-five 17th century masterpieces.  continue

This exhibition was organized in collaboration with the Museum of Modern Art in New York where it was presented from June to September 2009. Curators from both museums have thus worked jointly and it is obvious that the partnership has resulted in a coherent and thorough project. It is well known that in the case of artists with long careers where renewed inspiration is not always patent, visitors find themselves walking through rooms showing repetitive periods, with works seeming almost pastiches or products of a weakening talent which reflect poorly on the painter’s image.  continue

Though Art Nouveau is today a major and undisputed category in art history and is correctly considered one of the great moments of our civilization, we tend to forget at times the scorn and oblivion it endured during the period between the 20’s and 60’s.  continue

Born a year before the founding of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, J.W. Waterhouse was too young to be a part of the movement although many of his paintings reflect its influence. The artist was however much more than a late follower. His art reveals myriad inspirations, making him a perfect example of historical painting or historical genre in the late 19th century, a hybrid of Academism, Symbolism and Naturalism.  continue

Before opening at the Grand Palais on 22 February of next year, Turner and the Master has welcomed its first visitors, both numerous and enthusiastic, in London. This is due reward for a presentation which associates texts and images in such a precise manner that there is no need for lengthy explanations to understand the curators’ message. Yet the intention far surpasses the pleasure of seeing Turner next to his acknowledged models or the goal of showing us how earnestly and constantly he turned to them.  continue

Her name always linked to her master Fragonard – and the current exhibition is no exception to the rule – Marguerite Gérard always had a difficult time existing in her own right in the eyes of later generations. In the last few years, thanks to Pierre Rosenberg, Jean-Pierre Cuzin and now Carole Blumenfeld, curator of the exhibition along with José de Los Llanos, her work is now becoming better known and, at times, even encroaching that of her brother-in-law (or the opposite). Today, several paintings are attributed to a collaboration between both artists.  continue

In December 1913, a few months after he died, Fernand Pelez’ friends and family organized a retrospective of his work in his sumptuous workshop, at the foot of Montmartre: half a century of an artistic career, with its eclipses, was summed up in seventy-six pieces. It was focused skillfully on the outcasts which had helped to make his fortune as of 1883, before then diminishing it for a long while.  continue

Although productions of French and Belgian Art Nouveau, as well as those from other Eastern European countries, had been highlighted in major exhibitions in France and Europe, Tiffany, this exceptional American designer, had been overlooked and, except for a few emblematic objects, it was almost impossible for the French public to appreciate his genius directly.  continue

Rome, Academie de France a Rome, Villa Medicis, from 10 July to 20 September 2009.
The palace built by Ferdinando de Medicis on the Pincio hill has always been admired by travelers, usually from outside, only able to take in the imposing and martial-like façade. Exceptionally, this cultural fortress has now opened its doors to the public for the exhibition Villa aperta, which attempts to shed light on the history and heritage of the Villa Medicis and the Academie de France in Rome. Besides (...)   continue

The Museo del Prado is devoting its summer exhibition to Joaquin Sorolla (1863-1923), the last of the great Spanish “classical” painters. After the almost continuous success of his career both in Spain, Europe and the United States there followed a long period of indifference, barely awakened by a retrospective in 1963 in Madrid celebrating the  continue

After the exhibition in Evreux devoted to Jean-Baptiste de Champaigne and Nicolas de Plattemontagne, after the retrospective on Philippe de Champaigne in Lille, the Musée de Port-Royal is now highlighting these three artists by presenting their graphic works.  continue

More and more provincial museums are focusing on their collections and publishing catalogues raisonnés often with an accompanying exhibition. The Italian paintings at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Strasbourg had already been the subject of several publications. Today, the important Northern school holdings are spotlighted after benefiting from an extensive restoration effort.  continue

An exhibition consisting of works transferred from one museum for display in another can be justified in certain specific cases, for example when there are drawings which cannot be shown permanently on their conservation site or when the original museum is closed for repairs, or else when the event is not just a juxtaposition of the most important masterpieces but rather offers a veritable study on art history…  continue

There is no doubt that Luc-Olivier Merson is strange indeed. This brave and successful retrospective thoroughly proves it. It also goes to show once again that the adjectives applied to some of the painting from the second half of the 19th century describe in only a very poor way an extremely complex reality.  continue

Like the exhibition, of transient quality by its very nature, the catalogue which accompanies this retrospective on 16th to 18th century French bronzes is to be generously commended. It is the result of years of research allowing the detailed study of an extensive number of works in European and American museums. Although this is a collective work, the texts reflect a unity and complementarity which come from careful editing.  continue

One could say that the price to pay for the indisputable domination of Turner museology by the Tate Britain is of course that other establishments might feel “overshadowed”, “complexed”, “frozen” to the point of abandoning any attempt at approaching the field for fear of suffering what would seem to be inevitably unflattering comparisons.  continue

On the third day of the Simon Vouet colloquium which took place in Nantes from the 4th through the 6th of December 2008, the participants were invited to visit the exhibition following the example of the Poussin encounter.  continue

On the waterfront): an evocative title which resounds like a familiar ballad. And by searching even just a bit, one soon finds its source: the memories of the realist tunes on the radio or the offerings in bookshop windows, perhaps also Elia Kazan’s classic film of 1954 starring Marlon Brando.  continue

In 2006, various exhibitions and events were organized in Northern Italy to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the death of Andrea Mantegna, in particular in the actual locations where the artist showed what his talent was capable of over the entire second half of the Quattrocento.  continue

Simon Vouet (The Italian Years 1613/1617). Nantes, Musée des Beaux-Arts, from 21 November 2008 to 23 February 2009. Besançon, Musée des Beaux-Arts, from 27 March to 29 June 2009.
The Simon Vouet retrospective organized at the Grand Palais by Jacques Thuillier in 1991 is still vividly remembered. Since then, studies on the painter, his circle and his students have abounded, defining the image of the artist and his workshop ever more clearly. Many of his paintings resurface regularly as we have (...)   continue

The Giovanni Bellini exhibition in Rome could have formed a sort of diptych with the one devoted to Mantegna at the Louvre. And yet they are as different as they could possibly be. Whereas the second one, well presented, intelligently focuses on replacing the artist in his period and reveals a commendable pedagogical dimension, the Roman retrospective chooses to concentrate only on the painter in a monographic undertaking which is as disappointing as it is ambitious.  continue

Until now The Art Tribune had not had the chance to comment on exhibitions at the Centre Georges Pompidou. Of course, 19th century works did occasionally appear in certain introductory sections of larger events; this was the case for the memorable Apocalypse joyeuse by Jean Clair in 1987 and more recently with Traces du sacré (despite the fact that, although quite interesting due to the quality of the objects displayed, it in no way entered into the realm of art history).  continue

Among the many exhibitions vying for the public’s attention in this particularly busy fall season, the one in Compiègne is without a doubt one of the best, spectacular as well as erudite, skillfully blending history and art history. It is accompanied by a rich catalogue of excellent essays though, once again, we regret that the objects in the illustrations do not present even the briefest of entries.  continue

Although German expression, even according to the organisers of this exhibition “is still a new subject in France”, what should be said about Emil Nolde, who is no doubt its most flamboyant representative, as we have had to wait until 2008 to see a retrospective devoted to him in France, more than fifty years after his death.  continue

Generally, the large compositions of the History of Alexander by Charles Le Brun exhibited at the Louvre (and at Versailles) are thought to be preparatory cartoons for tapestries. Actually, these paintings, which were first intended most probably for the décor of a gallery which was never built, were not directly the original source of the pieces woven at the Gobelins.  continue

The exhibition in Basel presents several interesting problems which do not necessarily have anything to do with art history. First of all, the title, a simple marketing ploy, is misleading. This is in no way a retrospective of the genre as a whole over three centuries. In fact, the works shown here are almost exclusively Flemish, Dutch and German; none from Italy and only three from France.  continue

Picasso et les Maîtres Paris, Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, 8 October 2008 to 2 February 2009 - Paris, Musée du Louvre, 9 October 2008 to 2 February 2009 - Paris, Musée d’Orsay, 8 October 2008 to 1st February 2009. London, National Gallery, 25 February to 7 June 2009.
Picasso et les maîtres has been calibrated to beat all attendance records and elicit the most extravagant claims (the biggest exhibition of the year, of the decade, even of the century…). It was clever to come up with the (...)   continue

After Sceaux and Arras, this exhibition of a private collection will end its tour at the Musée Bonnat. We should have talked about it much earlier (we saw it in Sceaux a year ago now  continue

The Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon’s graphic collection is not well-known and generally speaking underrated, except for 19th century French drawings which have been showcased in several exhibitions and publications. It would be surprising, however, that one France’s major museums not hold at least a few beautiful old sheets.  continue

One hundred twenty years ago, the Finnish Fine-Arts Association inaugurated the Ateneum building. The museum was celebrating the anniversary by offering a retrospective on one of the first students to have been welcomed there: Pekka Halonen.  continue

Some artists who followed Bastien-Lepage in the Naturalist path opened by him are becoming better known and appreciated (Pelez, Friant, Dagnan-Bouveret, Geoffroy, Debat-Ponsan, as well as foreign painters…) , but Eugene Buland remained until now hard to grasp. In some cases, one painting is enough to remember a name and recognize the artist, either because of a very personal or extravagant style, or due to a recurring subject.  continue

Long gone is the time when Orientalism lived under terrorist threat. In less than thirty years Edward Said’s manifesto, Orientalism: Western Conceptions of the Orient, has lost much of its hold over researchers and collectors in the field. It is well known that the Columbia professor, a native of Palestine, had massively rejected Orientalist literature, be it French, English or American, claiming that it had conditioned Europe’s view of the Orient, in order to better control it.  continue

Percy Wyndham Lewis’s name will be familiar to readers of The Art Tribune, at least in the United Kingdom – but one may wonder how many people, even among the educated public, really know what he did apart from writing a book in praise of Hitler in 1931 (even though he retracted his judgement after a visit to Berlin in 1937, now denouncing the Nazis’ anti-Semitism).  continue

Marie d’Orléans (ill. 1), daughter of a king, holds an ambiguous place in art history. Many see only the whims of a rich young girl in her sculpting activities. Dead at the age of twenty-five, her obviously reduced body of work was soon forgotten with the exception of one piece  continue

When travellers to Florence visit the Piazza San Giovanni, dominated by the Duomo, Giotto’s Campanile and the Baptistery, they may not notice anything missing amid these towering marble wonders. Even most Florentines have not realized that the large bronzes located on the architraves of the north and south doors of the Battistero had been removed in 2006 for restoration.  continue

Nicolas Poussin never painted the moon, I would venture to say. Just like Philippe de Champaigne, he knew how to paint the spiritual in art, but unlike the latter who dared, and successfully so, to represent celestial phenomena, Poussin’s world lies securely on earth; only and totally on earth: anything under the sun, from the physical blue of the troposphere to the archeological fragments or the animals on the ground, by way of the endless play of light on tree leaves, the strict (...)  continue

Except for the presentation organized by the Musée Marmottan in 2005, the last important retrospective on Camille Claudel dates back to 1991 and was also at the Musée Rodin at a time when this artist was still unfamiliar to the general public.  continue

Strangely enough, grisaille, the technique by which an artist works without colour, using only the resources of white and black, has been rarely studied. And yet the subject is fascinating, raising many questions about the very act of painting. Why does one deliberately choose to do without colour?  continue

Exhibitions are quite often the perfect occasion to assemble not only works but also researchers by bringing them together usually for two or three days, be it at times in a fishbowl, close to the paintings. This is known as a colloquium. It is meant to encourage meetings and exchanges among specialists but can easily transform itself into a series of soliloquies, with texts which are prepared before seeing the works gathered there as an ensemble and orators who do not necessarily listen to what others are saying.  continue

The museum in Lyon managed to obtain the deposit of The Flight into Egypt by Nicolas Poussin, in danger of being sold abroad, after the Ministry of Culture listed it as a “national treasure” and as a result of Sylvie Ramond’s patient fundraising labours among patrons in Lyon along with the Louvre’s prestigious name and network of supporters  continue

This review could have just as easily appeared in the Publications section. Indeed, the exhibition organized by the Bibliothèque Marmottan accompanies the monographic study published by Isabelle Mayer-Michalon at Arthéna and which is much more than a simple catalogue.  continue

They are all here. All those who Nerval said were the sons of this « Germany, a mother to us all ». Yes, every single one, from the best-known – Friedrich, Runge, Carus, Füssli (who was Swiss but spent his career in England), Tischbein, Kersting, Overbeck, von Schadow, Schinkel – to the fifty or so less famous ones: in all, 124 drawings and watercolours representing 59 artists who constitute a remarkably complete panorama of the art of drawing in Germanic countries between 1770 and 1830.  continue

The Poussin exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum, which arrived here from Bilbao, cannot be reduced to its title alone. First of all because it is a veritable retrospective given the continuous presence of nature and landscapes throughout the different periods of the artist’s career and although the theme automatically excludes such masterpieces as Germanicus and the Judgement of Solomon, it is still possible to understand Poussin without these.  continue

Usually, it is the book that accompanies the exhibition. In the case of the Filippo Napoletano exhibition in Florence, things are the other way around. Here it was the exhibition that was organised to accompany the publication of Marco Chiarini’s long-awaited monograph on this eclectic artist.  continue

Glasgow, Hunterian Art Gallery, University of Glasgow, from 25 January to 17 April 2008
Ernest Gombrich once wrote about “the whirligig of taste”and nowhere can this better apply than in the case of Victorian academic painting – and even more so in the case of its leading figure, Frederic, 1st Baron Leighton (1830–1896), whose impressive list of honours shows the immense prestige which he enjoyed both in Britain and abroad. If one accepts that the number of books about a given person reflects (...)   continue

Baccio Bandinelli. Peintures et dessins du Louvre. Paris, Musée du Louvre, du 21 février au 26 mai 2008
Only a few weeks after the exhibition on Polidoro da Caravaggio’s drawings ended, the Louvre is opening a new presentation of an Italian Renaissance master who was just as “fascinating but difficult”, to use Carel van Tuyl’s very accurate expression in his remarkable introductory essay for the catalogue. The museum has indeed decided to honor Baccio Bandinelli (1493-1560), often relegated to (...)   continue

It seems that only the English know how to look at and exhibit decorative arts as a living matter, reflecting its strong hold over those who have made them an everyday companion in their lives or the instruments of an aesthetic crusade.  continue

Englishmen passing through Rome on their Grand Tour, the trip through Europe that any true aristocrat had to take, wanted their portrait done by him. This is probably why Pompeo Batoni, one of the great Italian painters of the second half of the XVIIIth century, is still known in Great Britain and the reason he is being celebrated today. Right when the Baroque movement was breathing its last in Italy, Batoni was initiating the transition that would lead to Neoclassicism.  continue

At a time when it appears there can never be too many exhibitions on Italian renaissance painting and Titian in particular (as noted e.g. by Christophe Brouard’s review of the Titian exhibition at Belluno elsewhere on La Tribune de l’Art), it is a pleasure to see monographic expositions being devoted to two Italian seventeenth-century artists that are undoubtedly lesser known, but that on the ground of artistic quality certainly merit both scholarly and wider public attention.  continue

“Oh, what a bunch of naughty boys!�?, “They really had some cheek!�?, might be some of the silent exclamations visitors to the exhibition of this bawdy trio at the Tate Modern will make when they are confronted with their works – and our gang of three would happily nod from the depth of their graves if they could.  continue

Walter Sickert (1860-1942) has just had a retrospective devoted to his “Camden Town Murder�? series, but other members of the “Camden Town Group�? which he founded in 1911 have not benefited from the same attention in the recent past – in fact the Press Release tells us that this is the first exhibition to focus on the Group for twenty years.  continue

Maastricht, MECC, from 7 to 16 March 2008
Every year, the Maastricht Fair lives up to its reputation as the most important Antiques show in the world. This column will be anything but objective. At Maastricht, art lovers will find countless XXth century works to admire by such masters as Léger, Braque, Picasso. The fair is worth the trip for this modern section alone. However, we will not cover it in detail, as some of the works fall outside our chronological range and also due to our (...)   continue

Bruxelles, Palais des Beaux-Arts (Bozar Expo), from 14 february to 18 may 2008.
The press release begins by saying : « The exhibition[…] comes straight from the imagination of Laurent Busine, the highly inspired director of MAC’s (musée des arts contemporains of Grand-Hornu).” It should have remained there. The visitor will leave after having seen some very beautiful works among them one or two previously unpublished, and many mediocre ones including several copies that are presented as (...)   continue

In the planning at the Musée d’Orsay for a long time, the Alexandre Charpentier exhibition opened one year prior to the one hundredth anniversary of the death of this remarkable artist who has remained mostly unknown to the general public. A man of demanding spirit and a virtuoso in his execution, this sculptor who created forms in different domains of the decorative arts definitely had earned the tribute in more ways than one.  continue

Not many exhibitions offer such a wide selection of truly international works as the one assembled currently at the British Library by its curator Stephen Bury, who has been gently chided for taking the risk of bewildering the British public in presenting a great number of these in a foreign language. To those who may have joined in the skepticism, let us reassure them that visitors are thronging to the show.  continue

When an exhibition is shown in two different places, it is often wise to see it in both as oftentimes the arrangement of the works varies so much depending on the size of the rooms. Whereas the Mellin retrospective at the Musee des Beaux-Arts de Nancy was beautiful and very interesting due to the subtle and refined staging produced by the architect and museographer Didier Blin, the one in Caen (which ended 31 December 2007) became in fact fascinating, perhaps more striking, again in the (...)  continue

Paul Baudry 1828-1886. Portraits and nudes and Becoming a painter in the XIXth century: Baudry, Bouguereau, Lenepveu
The musee de La Roche-sur-Yon, which had remained closed for several years, organized at the end of 2007 its first major exhibition since the one devoted to Paul Braudy in 1986. The decorator of the Paris Opera was once again represented but this time accompanied by some of his fellow painters as the purpose was to highlight the path of young artists from the Ecole des (...)   continue

Some art historians of Neoclassicism use the expression “the three G’s�? in designating David’s leading students: Girodet, Gros and Gérard to whom they at times add a fourth, Guérin, although he belonged to Regnault’s workshop.  continue

Ever since the Musée du Louvre opened its doors to contemporary artists, the question of chronological and geographical boundaries for each of the Parisian museums has become a matter of state. In New York, the debate has been going on for some time and has erupted into open war.  continue

Despite the monographic study on him by Bernard Dorival some years ago, Jean-Baptiste de Champaigne remains relatively unknown due to the fact that he is strongly overshadowed by his uncle. Although several paintings have been published, when works are considered too weak to be by Philippe de Champaigne the tendency today is still to ascribe them to his nephew. And when a painting does not seem good enough for Jean-Baptiste, then it is immediately attributed to Nicolas de Plattemontagne.  continue

This is a fascinating exhibition of thirty-eight paintings and a catalogue which is just as remarkable: even the awful arrangement in which the canvases deprived of daylight are overwhelmed by the black walls and an exasperating overdramatization cannot spoil the visitor’s enjoyment.  continue

On the occasion of the centenary of the birth of Paul Mellon (1907-1999), the Royal Academy presents more than 150 works from the vast collections built up by this wealthy member of the celebrated American banking family. In fact, one of the major sponsors of the exhibition is the Bank of New York Mellon, as the family establishment is now known.  continue

With American culture ever more present in Europe, for better or worse, it is strange that XIXth C. painting and sculpture in the United States have been so overlooked. Still, it is often the case in their own country as well where Western artists are generally excluded from fine arts museums, except for such rare examples as the Denver Art Museum or the Minneapolis Institute of Art, and can usually be found only in specialized establishments.  continue

2007 is not in any way a special “Bernini year�? on account of the dates that mark the artist’s birth and death (1598-1680), and yet Rome, which was always the centre of his activities, has seen a number of important Bernini events this past year. The exhibition Bernini pittore that opened last month as the first exhibition in three renovated and newly opened rooms on the second floor of palazzo Barberini is the second Bernini exhibition in Rome this year.  continue

It is probably no exaggeration to say that Walter Sickert (1860-1942) is little known among the general public. Outside the art world, however, his name is familiar to British social historians for his series on the seedy tenements of Camden Town at the time of a new case reminiscent of Jack the Ripper.  continue

Belgium is still without a government but its cultural life continues as intensely as ever, with an exhibition program of old art which is particularly rich. Based in Brussels, you need at least two or three days to visit everything in Flanders and Wallonia.
In the capital, we will simply remind our readers of the exhibition devoted to Rubens at the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts since Alexis Merle du Bourg has already given us a very thorough review (in French) on La Tribune de l’Art. Nor (...)   continue

Organized in conjunction with Europalia, the exhibition Le grand atelier is a success. We wanted to ask Roland Recht about his choices.  continue

The Galli Bibiena family are probably the best known Italian stage designers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Their inventions of fantastical and grand architectural settings graced the stages of Parma, Bologna, Milan, Vienna and other cities.  continue

Crowds are flooding the Tate Britain and museum goers will never feel lonely when visiting the seven galleries composing this amazing exhibition. Even the late landscapes, the last moment of a well-paced tour which is perfectly presented, seduce art lovers, ready to forgive the head of the pre-Raphaelite school whatever he attempted.  continue

Given the fact that most French people are not really interested in foreign artists, it is certainly brave to organize an exhibition on someone like Alfred Kubin. When adding to that the reticence with which they generally welcome anything coming from “Germanic�? countries, it is almost an exploit. Klinger, von Stück, Böcklin are immensely talented artists who are totally misunderstood in France.  continue

About twenty years ago, when visiting the Musée Girodet, we could see the building outside housing the pieces from the artist’s workshop. The collection was at the time in precarious shape. A rehabilitation of XIXth C. sculpture was just beginning to take hold after decades of neglect during which large numbers of objects disappeared from establishments that had been theoretically set up to preserve them.  continue

Often considered a minor art, miniatures are generally perceived to be the work of a skilled craftsman rather than that of a creative artist. Its status, somewhere between that of an art object and a painting, does nothing to elevate it on the artistic scale. And yet, from the XVIth to the XIXth C., miniature painting constituted a major discipline both in its social function, often a representation in small format of a beloved person or place, as well as in its artistic qualities.  continue

Having died prematurely before completing the Monumental Door which he considered to be his masterpiece, of which only a few fragments are left today, Jean Carriès remains unfamiliar to the general public although a passionate subject for amateurs with his work continuing to set record prices at auctions, especially over the last decade.  continue

About a hundred objects and images, paintings, drawings as well as engravings, arranged in a delicate staging at the Institut néerlandais succeed in evoking this brief but important reign, at once unfortunate and fruitful. The exhibition presents a large number of clocks with themes: The Horaces by David, Télémachus by Fénelon thus ironically reminding us that although the former Low-Countries ran on Parisian time, a new Caesar still set the clocks.  continue

Heaps of flowers, animals or objects tracing human figures, is a way of summarizing Arcimboldo’s unique art. A native of Milan, his name forever associated to these “composed heads�?, he worked principally at the Habsburg imperial court in the 1560’s.  continue

The exhibition currently showing at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon is clearly inspired by the “cartes blanches�? project organized by the Louvre a few years ago for contemporary artists and writers. The guest commissioner is the philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy, with the assistance of Sylvie Ramond, director of the museum, and Eric Pagliano, cultural heritage curator who is also with the INHA.  continue

Organizing this exhibition was quite an achievement. The purpose is that of the one hundredth anniversary of the Demoiselles d’Avignon which officially marks the birth of Cubism. The Museum of Modern Art in New York could not possibly have lent this mythical painting and, as expected, it is not present.  continue

Several events and colloquia have been organized to mark the one hundredth anniversary of J. K. Huysmans’ death. However, only one exhibition, that presented together by the very active Société des amis de Huysmans and the Musée national Gustave Moreau highlights the significance of his relationship to the arts.  continue

As the Rembrandt year draws to a close, bringing with it an ensuing number of publications, some of which are outstanding exhibition catalogues, art institutions and museum goers continue to show an interest in XVIIth C.  continue

There has not been an exhibition of XVIIthC. Italian paintings on the Parisian cultural scene for quite some time. Thus we are all the more delighted with the remarkable retrospective of Neapolitan still lifes organized by the Canesso Gallery. The works come from private collections (many of them had been shown at the gallery, some still belong to it) or Italian museums.  continue

We have spoken twice about the painting in the British Royal Collection attributed to Caravaggio by Sir Denis Mahon. The exhibition at the Queen’s Gallery in London, which is currently showing part of the Italian paintings and drawings of the XVIth and XVIIth CC. belonging to Queen Elizabeth, presents it as being by the artist without any doubts. However, although the composition is surely due to the master, many experts are less unanimous  continue

This is decidedly a rich year for lovers of French XVIIth C. painting. After Jacques Stella and Philippe de Champaigne, it is Charles Mellin’s turn to enjoy the honor of a retrospective currently in Nancy and which will then travel to Caen.  continue

It seems surprising at first to hold an exhibit for over six months of one hundred works by Jean-Jacques Henner when he already has a museum in his name in the French capital. In fact, this transfer is due to the closing for restoration of the Musée national Jean-Jacques Henner: mosaics, marble and other décors that were negligently altered in the XIXth C. should recover their original luster.  continue

He was indeed a man for all seasons! At once doctor, philanthropist, amateur painter, collector and one of the Louvre’s most generous donors, Doctor La Caze rightly deserves the tribute that the museum is currently paying him.  continue

In a very understated setting, the National Gallery in London (where we viewed this exhibit) welcomed about sixty Renoir landscapes displayed in strict chronological order.  continue