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