Funding for the construction of the Louvre-Lens Museum has come from the European Union, the regional authorities and primarily from the Nord – Pas-de-Calais Regional Council. The Louvre-Lens Museum demonstrates a willingness to place a strong and ambitious cultural programme right at the heart of a positive regional venture.
The Louvre-Lens Museum is co-financed by the European Union. Europe is committed to Nord – Pas-de-Calais through the European Regional Development Fund.
This book has been published as part of the exhibition “Galerie du Temps” at the Louvre-Lens Museum; it has been updated and takes into account the new works included in the exhibition as from 4 December 2014. The exhibition the “Galerie du Temps” has been organised by the Louvre Museum, Paris, and the Louvre-Lens Museum. The Grande Galerie has been constructed with the patronage of Crédit Agricole Nord de France.
In application of the French law of 11 March 1957 (article 41) and the Code of Intellectual Property of 1 July 1992, all partial or total reproduction for collective purposes of this work is strictly forbidden without the explicit permission of the publisher. In this regard, it is reminded that abusive and collective use of photocopying is a risk for the economic balance of the circuits of book production. © Musée du Louvre-Lens, Lens © Somogy éditions d’art, Paris 2013 for the first edition 2014 for the third edition www.louvrelens.fr www.somogy.fr ISBN Musée du Louvre-Lens : 978-2-36838-024-6 ISBN Somogy éditions d’art : 978-2-7572-0896-0 Dépôt légal : November 2014 Printed in Italy (European Union)
LOUVRE LENS THE GUIDE 2015 Xavier Dectot Jean-Luc Martinez Vincent Pomarède
The patrons and partners of the Louvre-Lens Museum Principal Sponsors Crédit Agricole Nord de France Veolia Environnement Major Sponsors Auchan Nexans Caisse d’Épargne Nord France Europe Key Partners Orange Caisse des Dépôts SNCF Partners Trend Française de Mécanique AG2R La Mondiale Fondation d’entreprise Total Vitra Groupe Sia Crédit du Nord CCI de région Nord de France Dupont Restauration Maisons et Cités With the participation of the Compagnons du Devoir et du Tour de France for the manufacture of the furniture in the picnic area
Exhibition Curators of the “Galerie du Temps”: Jean-Luc Martinez and Vincent Pomarède Design: Studio Adrien Gardère Louvre-Lens Museum President: Jean-Luc Martinez Director: Xavier Dectot General administrator: Catherine Ferrar Researcher and exhibition supervisor: Anne-Sophie Haegeman Public mediation: Juliette Guépratte Multimedia: Guilaine Legeay Organisation and administration: Raphaëlle Baume, Caroline Chenu and Marie-Clélie Dubois Louvre Museum President-director: Jean-Luc Martinez General administrator: Hervé Barbaret Assistant general administrator: Charlotte Lemoine Public mediation: Catherine Guillou, Amine Kharchach, Frédérique Leseur, Marina-Pia Vitali Lenders of the exhibition pieces The pieces exhibited in the “Galerie du Temps” all come from the eight departments of the Louvre Museum Display design Designer: Studio Adrien Gardère (project leader: Lucie Dorel / Mathieu Muin) Lighting: ACL. Conception lumière Display cases: Goppion Graphics: Norm Mounting: Version bronze Installation: André Chenue S.A.
Publication Louvre-Lens Museum Editorial coordination and iconography: Charles-Hilaire Valentin Somogy éditions d’art Publishing director: Nicolas Neumann Graphic design: Loïc Levêque Adaptation and layout: Frédérique Cassegrain Editorial coordination: Lydia Labadi and Laurence Verrand Translation from French to English: Timothy Stroud Editorial contribution: Natasha Edwards Technical production: Michel Brousset, Béatrice Bourgerie and Mélanie Le Gros
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
From the very start this project was instigated and carried out by the Nord – Pas-de-Calais region and the Louvre Museum. Both teams must be warmly thanked for their constant dedication and involvement. Special gratitude must also be extended to those who first worked on the overall conception of the “Galerie du Temps”: Elisabeth Taburet-Delahaye, Jean-Marc Legrand, Olivier Meslay, Marielle Pic and Danièle Brochu. Particular mention should be made of those who have been closely involved with the development of the museum since its inception: at the Louvre, Claudia Ferrazzi, Valérie Forey, Katia Lamey and Catherine Sueur; at the Région Nord – Pas-deCalais, Yves Duruflé, Didier Personne, Jérôme Darras, Bernard Masset, G illes Pette, Elvire Percheron. The Louvre-Lens teams have been formed since 2011 and recognition is due to their constructive and ongoing efforts. The Research and Restoration Centre of the Musées de France was a vital partner during the early stage of the project and we would like to express our appreciation to all its personnel.
Following pages: The Louvre Museum in Paris, aerial view The Louvre-Lens Museum, aerial view, looking south-north (computer generated image)
CONTENTS
10 11
Preface, Daniel Percheron Foreword, Jean-Luc Martinez
13 14 20
THE MUSEUM, Xavier Dectot
27 29
THE GALERIE DU TEMPS
31 32 33
ANTIQUITY, Jean-Luc Martinez
34 43 48 55 56 66 74 80 84 90 93 94 99 106
A Territory Like No Other Alike Yet Different, the Louvre-Lens
Introduction, Xavier Dectot
Antiquity in the Collections of the Louvre Museum THE ORIGINS OF ANCIENT CIVILISATIONS (4TH AND 3RD MILLENNIA BC) The Birth of Writing in Mesopotamia The Origins of Egyptian Civilisation The Rise of Mediterranean Civilisations THE TIME OF THE GREAT EASTERN EMPIRES (2000–500 BC) The Ancient Near East in the Time of Babylon Egypt of the Great Temples City-States of the Mediterranean The Assyrian Empire The Twilight of Ancient Egypt The Persian Empire A GREEK AND ROMAN WORLD (500 BC–476 AD) Classical Greece The World of Alexander the Great The Roman Empire
125 126 128 134 144 154 162 170 177
THE MIDDLE AGES, Jean-Luc Martinez and Vincent Pomarède
183 184 185 211 224 232 242 252 267 279 286
THE MODERN ERA, Vincent Pomarède
The Middle Ages in the Collections of the Louvre Museum Eastern Christianity: the Byzantine Empire Western Christianity: the First Churches The Emergence of Islamic Civilisation Encounters between Italy, Byzantium and Islam in the West Gothic Europe The Islamic Golden Age in the Near East Encounters between East and West
The Modern Era in the Collections of the Louvre Museum The Renaissance Three Modern Islamic Empires Arts of the Court Baroque Europe French Classicism The Enlightenment Neoclassical Movements Islam and Western Art in the 19th Century On the 1830 Revolution: Art and Power in France
PREFACE
Daniel Percheron Senator for Pas-de-Calais President of the Conseil Régional Nord – Pas-de-Calais
With the opening of the Louvre-Lens Museum, situated over a former pithead, a dream has come true for the region of Nord – Pas-de-Calais and its president. It is also a dream for the inhabitants of the region, whose recent history is founded on the hardships of the coal-mining life and the difficulties of the closure of the pits, and who now accept the conversion of the facilities with immense courage and unequalled dignity. It is a dream, too, for the Conseil Régional, its members and administration, who have overcome uncommon obstacles to help this region hold its head high once more, fix on the horizon and forge a new path. It is a dream for the mining basin, which sees urban and rural landscaping projects transform the old mining centres and their surroundings: the slightly crazy hope of a successful graft for the economic renewal of France’s twelfth agglomeration, with the museum and its associated Euralens project, from which the entire region may benefit in a dynamic that we hope is irreversible. This dream was founded on a wholly exceptional decentralisation project, wished for by President Chirac and then taken on by the Conseil Régional with the passion and ambition to bring the plan to fruition. This drive was not represented purely by the financial contribution made by the Conseil Régional and its partners for the construction and operation of the Louvre-Lens, it has also taken the form of this institution’s commitment to play a major role at every stage of the project since its launch in 2005, and which will extend well beyond the museum’s opening. It is with the desire to participate with the LouvreLens in all its cultural, social and economic developments that the members of the Conseil Régional have wished to bring this dream to life, to offer it to the four million inhabitants of Nord – Pas-de-Calais and to share it with their fellow European citizens.
FOREWORD
Jean-Luc Martinez President of the Louvre Museum
Two years have already passed since the opening of the Louvre-Lens on 4 December 2012. Each anniversary is a stirring occasion: to see this museum become anchored in its local setting, the public come a first time and then return, and the visitors increasingly curious to discover and rediscover the works on exhibition are a source of great pride for all those who, at the Louvre and elsewhere, have been involved in the creation of this museum. In two years much has been accomplished by the young team at the Louvre-Lens and we can congratulate ourselves that our first goals have been reached: more than the number of visitors (one and a half million), it is the praise that has been heaped on the museum and the diversity of its visitors that offers greatest satisfaction. The first exhibitions and programmes enabled the museum to get to know its public and to understand their expectations, and the resulting success confirms the validity of associating artistic and scientific excellence with a dynamic mediation service geared to all publics. It is worth noting that the Louvre-Lens has succeeded in attracting, for more than half of its visitors, publics from the local region, publics that are socially more varied than any other museum, and publics that have come from neighbouring countries, Belgium in particular. With its third year beginning in 2015, a new era is beginning for this young museum, in which it aims to consolidate its high standards and its goal of making the museum a destination for all. Democratisation is the heart of this project and the Louvre-Lens strives to build up a loyal public while also winning new visitors. Its high standards are above all implemented in the exemplary presentation of the collections of the Louvre in the “Galerie du Temps”: for the second consecutive year, more than twenty new masterpieces have been sent to Lens to replace those that have been returned to the Palais du Louvre. This rotation of works, chosen to respect the chronological presentation in the gallery, is highly representative of the wealth and depth of the Louvre’s collections: the
Worshipper of Larsa from Mesopotamia, a new work by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Ruggiero Rescuing Angelica, a large new batch of medieval sculptures, another masterpiece by Georges de La Tour, St Joseph the Carpenter, and Belisarius Begging for Alms by Jacques-Louis David… These are some of the most important new works that can be seen and reseen in the “Galerie du Temps” in the year 2015. The museum’s cultural offering has also been enhanced over the past two years and will continue to undergo development. The guest of honour in 2015 is Egypt, which will be featured in the exhibition “Animals and Pharaohs: the Animal Kingdom in Ancient Egypt”; the artistic relations between medieval France and Italy will be highlighted in a new exhibition, “Paris, Florence, Sienna, 1250–1320”, put on in partnership with Italian museums; La Scène will carry forward its varied programme open to all publics, in association with artists and troupes from the region; and, lastly, the programme, unique in France, relating to the behindthe-scenes events that make a museum exhibition possible, will be expanded, with the public welcomed in the workshops to see artworks undergoing an essential procedure in their lives, that of restoration. The Louvre-Lens has already developed into a local, national and European institution. As a result of partnerships formed with European museums, it has confirmed itself as a pivotal establishment at the heart of Europe. In parallel, in a region abounding with museums, it has succeeded in finding a place for itself in this longstanding local network by offering its curators carte blanche to present their regional collections in the Pavillon de Verre. Through its projects, the Louvre-Lens will continue to strengthen both these networks in the years to come. By combining high standards and an open outlook, this new phase in the life of the Louvre-Len will allow the museum to forge ahead in its adventure, and the different publics of the Nord-Pas-de-Calais and elsewhere to enjoy fresh and inspiring encounters with masterpieces from the history of art.
THE MUSEUM
A TERRITORY LIKE NO OTHER Xavier Dectot
The Louvre-Lens is a museum in every aspect, combining all the universality of the Louvre with all the richness of its host territory. The history of Nord – Pas-de-Calais has heavily marked the region and is consubstantial with its identity. It all began almost three hundred years ago in the part of the Hainaut annexed by France following the Treaties of Nijmegen. In 1716 Viscount Jacques Désandrouin obtained authorisation from the king to investigate whether the vein of coal known to exist north of the border continued into France. His discovery of it at Fresnes-sur-Escaut provided the spark for the first coalmining activity, in which the company Anzin played the leading role. The Industrial Revolution increasingly stoked the demand for coal but it was not until the mid-19th century that it was discovered that in Pas-de-Calais the vein curved along an eastwest axis. This moment marked the change in destiny of the Gohelle area. Until that time, the Lens plain had been sparsely populated and was devoted primarily to agriculture in spite of its relatively unfertile soil but, with knowledge that it was entirely crossed by the coal vein, the Gohelle was transformed. Pit after pit was opened and the plain became entirely devoted to coal mining. The most important consequence of this transformation, much more so than the changing of place names (Bully-en-Gohelle became Bully-les-Mines), was the demographic explosion: from fewer than 3000 inhabitants in 1850, the population of Lens alone grew to more than 30,000 in 1913 and to over 40,000 in the 1960s. This increase relied greatly on immigration, initially from within France and from Wallonie in Belgium, then from further away: Poles and Moroccans were the nationalities most widely represented in the mines.
Even the organisation of the mining companies affected the territory. They implemented a system in which all social activities revolved around themselves: the inhabitants were grouped in communities linked to the pit in which they worked, where they were almost self-sufficient. Each family benefited from a patch of garden, health care, a church and schools. The entire system, from birth to death, operated for the benefit of and through the mine. The great depth of the mines made extraction of the coal less profitable than in other regions, increasingly so as other sources of energy were developed. The pits gradually closed during the 1960s and 70s, with the last surviving into the 1980s, but they marked the landscape in the long-term, creating astonishing skylines, slag heaps and, above all, endowing the agglomeration that built up along the entire length of the coal vein with its distinctive appearance, that of a succession of mining estates built during very different epochs. However, coal mining was not the only form of human violence that had an impact on this territory. The low hills of Artois are the only raised land between the Paris basin and the plain of Flanders and were a strategic location, particularly during World War I. After the three battles of Artois in 1914–15, the front remained stuck at the foot of Vimy ridge until it was captured in 1917. The towns at its foot, including Lens and Liévin, were almost completely destroyed, a fate that was repeated in World War II. The resulting appearance of these towns is a blend of a rich Art Deco heritage with more modern, often very utilitarian, architecture, such as the “Camus” buildings that constituted the reconstructed mining estates. An understanding of the value of the former coal
1
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2
1 Watercolour by Peltier of the Pits 11-11 bis, 16-16 bis, 3-3 bis, 9-9 bis and their villages, Centre historique minier, Lewarde.
2 Photograph of the pithead of Pit 9, Centre historique minier, Lewarde, pre-1914 (22425).
3 Head frame of Pit 9, Lens, Centre historique minier, Lewarde, 1972 (22423).
ALIKE YET DIFFERENT, THE LOUVRE-LENS Xavier Dectot
9 North side: reception hall (in the centre). 10 East view of the reception hall. 11 Interior of the reception hall.
The architectural project The Louvre-Lens is closely linked with the territory in which it has been placed, first and foremost with the plot on which it has been installed. This is in fact an old pithead, the entry-point to Pits 9 and 9 bis operated by Mines de Lens, which has been raised a few metres above the surrounding terrain by the accumulation of shale. On the east side it is overlooked by a monument to sporting and mining history, the Bollaert stadium, built in 1932–33 by the mining company. To the north and south are two very different housing estates built for the mine workers. On one side, Saint-Théodore is a gardenestate built between the wars (like its neighbour, the estate Jeanne d’Arc). It is formed by streets of semi-detached houses with small, individual gardens and tree-lined avenues that create the impression of space. Beside the church in the centre of the village are two schools, one each for girls and boys. The regularity of the buildings is only broken opposite the entrance to the mine, where large houses inhabited by the upper echelons of the personnel (the engineer, assistant engineer, doctor and pharmacist) are ringed by walls and larger gardens. On the other side, by Pit 9 bis, the village was destroyed during World War II and reconstructed with prefabricated buildings. Quickly built, these were known as “Camus” after the engineer who devised them. These too are semi-detached and ringed by a garden but seem perhaps even more rational from an urbanplanning perspective. With regard to the pit itself, all that remained of it at the start of the 2000s was the badly damaged changing room and the stable, which had been transformed into a living space. Around it a small
area had been turned into a business park but most of the 22 hectares had been abandoned and become overgrown. It was this extraordinary space in the middle of the agglomeration and very close to the railway station that the Louvre and Nord – Pas-de-Calais region offered to the imagination of the architects who wished to take part in the design competition. The winner, who was chosen in 2005, was the Japanese firm SANAA, created by Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa (destined to win the Pritzker Prize in 2010) in partnership with Catherine Mosbach, Celia Imrey and Tim Culbert. One of the most remarkable aspects of their design is the maximal use of the available space through the creation of a park-museum rather than a museum set in a park. As such, visitors to the Louvre-Lens do not suddenly enter a museum but approach it gently through an expanse of greenery that both draws attention to the history of the site and encourages appropriation of the place. The mine is present but delicately and subtly so. The old haulageways, the railway tracks that carried the coal to the station and the shale to the slag heaps have been transformed into paths through the park and towards the museum. Certain plant species, pines in particular, recall the timber joists used to support the mining tunnels. Others attest the reappropriation of the site by nature. Thus, the west side has been colonised by a copse of birch trees; birches are known as pioneer trees because they are the first species to take up residence in a new space. Further evidence of nature taking back this plot is provided by the more discreet liquorice milk vetch (astragalus
12
13
THE GALERIE DU TEMPS
ANTIQUITY
Jean-Luc Martinez
ANTIQUITY IN THE COLLECTIONS OF THE LOUVRE MUSEUM
With regard to the long period that it has become conventional to refer to as Antiquity, which began with the invention of writing (c.3500 BC) and ended in the West with the end of the Roman Empire (AD 476), the collections of the Louvre Museum make it possible to illustrate the rapid development of three distinct and more or less contemporary seats of civilisation: the Near East, Egypt and the Mediterranean basin. The “Galerie du Temps” at the LouvreLens brings together 70 works produced over more than 4000 years in this vast geographical area that stretched from Algeria to Afghanistan. The organisation of the display allows attention to be drawn to the relationships, exchanges and moments of unification that occurred between these three centres. The works exhibited in the middle of the gallery originate in the region often called the Fertile Crescent, which, from Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq), a region crossed by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, methods of writing and models of state organisation spread eastwards (to the Iranian plateaus) and westwards (as far as the shores of the Levant, today Syria and Lebanon) and thus came into contact with the two other continents where the two other centres were developing: Egypt, an African civilisation centred entirely in the Nile valley, which is presented on the right side of the gallery, and the Mediterranean basin, on the left side. This geographic distribution across the width of the gallery is interwoven with a chronological distribution running lengthways that highlights important moments of unification and reveals the complexity of historical geography. Thus,
after the period of the early civilisations (4th and 3rd millennia BC), the focus is on the great empires of the 2nd and 1st millennia – Babylon, the Assyrian Empire and then the Persian Empire –, which progressively unified the Near East and integrated Egypt and part of the Greek world before Alexander the Great’s conquests (336–323 BC) established a form of Hellenisation that stretched from the East to the West as a prelude to the Roman Empire. Visitors may wish to progress through the gallery transversally to appreciate works created in different places during the same period, which is the manner that is proposed in these pages. Alternatively, the option exists to follow the evolution of a given artistic production in a single geographic area – for example, in Egypt, from the origins of writing around 3200 BC until the advent of Islam – for which one’s direction of visit would be lengthways, moving from one presentation to the next. Lastly, another possibility is to allow oneself to be guided purely by the nature of the works on show, as several thematic itineraries run through this chronology: writing and languages of communication; royal and imperial portraits, and the decoration of temples and palaces; and that of funerary goods, the evolution of the human figure, and the gods and heroes of mythology. Visitors are thus invited to take a long journey back in time to encounter works produced by the great civilisations of antiquity whose names are as exotic as they are evocative: Sumer, Babylon, Egypt, Assyria, Persia, Greece, Etruria, Rome – echoes of a distant past.
6. Oxus civilisation, Central Asia (present-day Afghanistan) c.2300–1700 BC Green chlorite and limestone Woman Wearing a Woollen Garment (“kaunakes”): Figure Protecting the Living or the Dead? H 17.3 x W 16.1 cm AO 22918 Purchase, 1969
12. Egypt c.2350 BC Painted limestone Funerary Statue of an Unknown Man H 85 x W 28 x D 36 cm A 46 Purchase, 1826
13. Egypt c.2500–2350 BC Painted limestone Decoration from a Funerary Chapel: Brewery Scene H 31 x W 32 x D 2.5 cm E 32880 Purchase, 2006
25. Luristan (present-day Iran) 800–700 BC Bronze Cheek Plate of a Horse Bit In the Form of a Horned Hero Overpowering Wild Animals H 11 x W 12.7 cm AO 20531 J. Coiffard collection, purchased 1958
26. Central Anatolia (present-day Turkey) c.1400–1200 BC Gold Amulet Pendant: Hittite God H 3.8 x W 1.3 cm AO 9647 On deposit from Guimet Museum of Asian Art, 1925
A GREEK AND ROMAN WORLD (500 BC–476 AD)
Unification of the three areas of civilisation presented here occurred progressively over the span of one thousand years, from 500 BC to 500 AD. Initially, its medium was the spread of the Greek language and culture, followed by the conquests of Alexander the Great (336–323 BC) that unified the eastern zone of the Mediterranean basin. Subsequently, the Roman conquests united both halves of the known world, the West and the East, stretching from North Africa to the Black Sea. In the “Galerie du Temps”, the increasingly prominent presence of marble sculpture – which makes it possible to appreciate, for example, the evolution of the male nude from the 6th century BC until AD 476 – and the utilisation of the full width of the gallery present this common culture of the ancient world while also revealing the limits of acculturation by demonstrating the persistence of regional characteristics.
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52. Lucania (present-day Italy) c.380 BC Terracotta, red-figure decoration Krater with Volute Handles Side A: musical competition between the god Apollo and the satyr Marsyas Side B: Dionysus, satyr and maenads H 59.9 x diam. 40 cm ED 199 Purchase, 1825
67. Rome?, Italy c.AD 150 Marble Jupiter, King of the Roman Gods, with a Thunderbolt and Eagle H 1.85 m MR 254 Borghese collection, purchase, 1807
68. Capitoline Hill, Rome, Italy c.AD 100–200 Marble Relief Showing Mithras, Iranian God of the Sun, Sacrificing the Bull H 2.54 x W 2.75 x D 0.80 m MR 818 Borghese collection, purchase, 1807
THE MIDDLE AGES
Jean-Luc Martinez Vincent Pomarède
THE MIDDLE AGES IN THE COLLECTIONS OF THE LOUVRE MUSEUM
The thousand years covering the long period between the 5th and 15th centuries is arbitrarily known in the West as the “Middle Ages”. As with other historic notions, this term, which is over-used and was given a derogative connotation during the 19th century, does not do justice to the sophisticated and complex civilisations that, far more than the remote period of Antiquity, laid the foundations of the modern world, particularly with regard to its political geography. It was a period of profound change that during the “Early Middle Ages” (5th– 10th centuries) saw the progressive transformation of the culture that emerged from Late Antiquity into an original civilisation, that of Romanesque and Gothic Europe (11th–13th centuries). The developments that occurred within this culture during the 14th and 15th centuries endured for a further century and broadly coexisted with the period that, quite improperly, is termed “the Renaissance”. Although this chronology is only valid for Western Europe, it nonetheless corresponds roughly to the major divisions in the history of the Byzantine Empire – split by the iconoclastic crisis (730–843) and Fourth Crusade (1204) during the proto-Byzantine and medioByzantine periods (4th–11th centuries) – and that of the renaissance of the empire during the Palaeologan dynasty (1261–1453). It is also consistent with the hiatuses in the history of the Islamic world which, following the period of unity represented by the Umayyad, Abbasid and Fatimid caliphates (7th–11th
96. Madinat al-Zahra (region of Cordoba), Spain c. 970 Ivory Box (Pyxis) Decorated with Four Medallions H 10.5; diam. 10.8 cm OA 2774 Gift of the Baron C Davillier, 1885
ENCOUNTERS BETWEEN ITALY, BYZANTIUM AND ISLAM IN THE WEST
A set of works has been assembled at the centre of the “Galerie du Temps” that reflects the vivacity of the technical and artistic exchanges and transfers between the three areas of civilisation – Byzantium, Islam and the Christian West – that we have just discovered. Due to its geographical position at the heart of the Mediterranean, the Italian peninsula acted as the bridge between these three distinct centres, in spite or, perhaps, because of the manner in which it was divided politically throughout the Middle Ages. Throughout this section of the exhibition, the peninsula’s privileged location (figs. 103, 116) is apparent, up until the Italy of the Renaissance (figs. 120–122, 127–132). In the 11th and 12th centuries Italy was divided into Lombard principalities and territories dominated by the papacy, the Byzantines, the Arabs and later the Normans. From 1060 the Normans were governed by Robert Guisnard (1062–85), duke of Apulia, Calabria and Sicily, who dedicated the new cathedral in Salerno in 1084. With Islamic Spain under the caliphate of Cordoba (fig. 96) and Mozarabic art taking its inspiration from Islamic models, Italy lay at the centre of these exchanges and thus produced a wide variety of artistic currents. This fusion of arts is reflected in the carving of ivory imported from Africa by Muslim merchants. As the carvings drew on diverse sources, it is not always possible to be sure of the centre of production. South Italy and Sicily, where a large Arabicspeaking community was settled, played a role: in south Italy we find painted ivory caskets mentioned in inventories as well as chess pieces, but the origin of oliphants (ivory horns) decorated with animals set amid foliage is more difficult to identify. The Hunting
GOTHIC EUROPE
Despite a pejorative connotation that appeared in the 16th century to denounce it as a “barbarous” style, “Gothic art”, which is more properly termed opus francigenum (literally “French work”), gradually established itself across much of Europe between its birth in the Ile-de-France around 1150 and the 16th century, during which time it was subjected to many variations: Meridional Gothic (1250–1400) in the south of France (Sainte-Cécile in Albi, Jacobins in Toulouse); Flamboyant Gothic (15th–16th century), for example in Louviers; Decorated or Perpendicular style in 14th-century England (Cambridge); Plateresque style in Spain (Valladolid, Salamanca); Manueline style in Portugal (after the name of King Manuel), and others. Apart from technical innovations borrowed from Anglo-Norman architecture, such as the pointed arch, Gothic art developed in the royal circle in the Ile-de-France and aimed to express a new conception of God. Reviving the thinking of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite, Abbot Suger of Saint-Denis (1122–51), a friend of Louis VI and regent of France while Louis VII was away on the Second Crusade in 1147, elaborated a mystical theory based on light in a religious interior. This was first articulated in the Basilica of Saint-Denis, just north of Paris, where French monarchs were buried and their regalia conserved. Linked to the formation of the Capetian royal domain around Senlis under King Philippe Auguste (1180–1223), the new art was diffused across Western Europe through the construction undertaken by the reformed monastic orders: the Cistercians in the 12th century and the Franciscans and Dominicans in the 13th. This architectural revolution characterised by the construction of many cathedrals dedicated to Mary developed hand-inhand with a thorough alteration of sensibilities that lay at the heart of a profound transformation in the figurative arts. Taking up the ideas of Aristotle, the Université de Paris developed a series of compendiums on animals, plants, science, morality and history that encouraged naturalism. The literature of
ENCOUNTERS BETWEEN EAST AND WEST
During the second half of the Middle Ages, the unremitting expansion of trade, the search for new resources and scientific curiosity triggered a great many overland and, later, maritime expeditions, towards Asia in particular. As well as the legendary journeys of the Venetian Marco Polo between 1271 and 1295, who reached China during the Yuan dynasty and even met Kublai Khan, there were others whose travels are less known, perhaps because they were not such skilled communicators, for example, Jean de Plan Carpin, who was sent to what is today Mongolia by Pope Innocent IV between 1241 and 1247; Yaroslav II of Vladimir with his sons, Andrei II and the famous Alexander Nevsky; the Frenchman André de Longjumeau and the Flemish Guillaume de Rubrouck who both went to China; and the aborted expedition of the brothers Vadino and Ugolino Vivaldi, who set off to explore the Atlantic in 1291 and were lost at sea. Islamic civilisations were equally curious to learn about distant, unknown lands, for example, Ibn Battuta, the famous Moroccan intellectual who between 1325 and 1354 made several journeys that took him to Timbuctoo, the banks of the Volga in Russia, the Maldives and even China. Closely tied by commercial interests, Muslim and Western countries traded together on a daily basis yet indulged also in a violent and even bloody contest for territorial influence. An important figure at this time was the Infante Henrique of Portugal, better known as Henry the Navigator, who invested heavily at the start of the 15th century to counter the commercial dominance of the Muslims in Africa
and to find a way to trade more easily with the East Indies. The period was characterised by cynical commercial pragmatism combined with a reciprocal cultural fascination, two realities that often served to suppress the tensions, ambitions and interests of those involved. As a prologue to the eventful “Age of Discovery”, whose advances in knowledge were intimately linked to the dawn of the Renaissance, these extraordinary journeys and the quality of the trade that they generated clearly encouraged contact between civilisations, the spread of techniques connected with creation and the circulation of certain aesthetics. The Louvre-Lens has thus chosen to illustrate the ties that related Europe – particularly Venice, which then enjoyed a quasi-monopoly on commercial exchanges with the Muslim world – to the Islamic countries through an astonishing and famous though not chronologically accurate painting executed in 1511, but one that is highly representative, the Reception of a Venetian Delegation in Damascus (fig. 116). Originally in the collection of Louis XIV, this painting is a real diplomatic symbol of the meetings that took place between the West and Islam. Often attributed to one of the members of the famous Bellini family of Venetian painters, this painting, which is so rare in terms of subject and iconography, depicts a delegation sent by the Republic of Venice to Damascus in Syria being received by the Mameluke governor (nâ’ib) of the city, who wears a six-pointed turban, as he welcomes his guests beside a ceremonial gateway.
THE MODERN ERA
Vincent Pomarède
THE MODERN ERA IN THE COLLECTIONS OF THE LOUVRE MUSEUM
Modernity is the term traditionally given to the period that, continuing from the Middle Ages, began with the Renaissance and lasted until it was supplanted by the contemporary era. While all historians agree that modernity began with the end of the Middle Ages during the 15th century – sometimes in 1453, with the fall of Constantinople and thus the end of the Byzantine Empire, sometimes in 1492, with the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus – only the French-speaking school of history has defined it as ending with the French Revolution in 1792, leaving the contemporary era to begin at the end of the 18th century. For most Anglo-Saxon countries, the modern period continued until the middle of the 20th century, and for some persists even today. However, the chronological divisions of the Louvre Museum have been established in accordance with a completely different logic, imposed by the symbolic date, 1848, that divides the collections of the Louvre from those of the Orsay Museum. Thus the objects in the Louvre were created no later than the mid-19th century. The “Galerie du Temps” bases its limits on those of the Louvre and thus offers a modern period that runs from the Renaissance to the middle of the 19th century. This new stage in our journey through the history of the arts, both in its content and the physical space dedicated to it in the gallery, is marked by an acceleration in the chronology of events: the points of temporal reference are no longer millennia or even centuries, as in Antiquity and the Middle Ages, but half-centuries or even decades. Thus the wealth of artistic events and trends during the 1650s – from Rembrandt to Poussin, from La Tour to Claude
– or the 1830s – Ingres, Corot, Duseigneur – entail a loosening of museographical limits and shorter temporal units. Figures are indicative of the choices made when the “Galerie du Temps” was conceived, choices that followed from the very nature of the collections of the Louvre: whereas 94 works out of the 213 exhibited illustrate the five centuries of the period designated as “Modern Times”, only 119 represent all the previous millennia. This chronological acceleration is coupled, moreover, by a clear geographic contraction. “We must, in our modern times, have a European spirit,” stated the novelist Madame de Staël learnedly in 1813, and the final third of the semi-permanent exhibition in the Louvre-Lens adopts this logic to the letter as far as the contraction of geographic borders is concerned: with the exception of the countries where Islam is dominant, which are represented in the last section of the “Galerie du Temps” with creations from Iran, Turkey and India, the pieces from the Renaissance to the 19th century come from European countries only and, more specifically, from the countries in Western Europe. Reflecting the acquisitions policy of the powersthat-be over several centuries – first monarchs, then the republics – the national collection has clearly laid emphasis on the Italian, French, Flemish and Dutch schools. So the crossing of the history of the arts proposed by the “Galerie du Temps” at the Louvre-Lens ends with a panoramic view of European art during modernity and, as far as the 19th century is concerned, through the works of Duseigneur and Ingres, with a discreet but real celebration of French art.
133. Joos Van Cleve Kleve?, c.1485 – Antwerp, 1540 or 1541 c.1535-40 Oil on panel Portrait of a man H 63 x W 53 cm Collection of Louis XIV of France (1643–1715) INV 2105
THREE MODERN ISLAMIC EMPIRES
At the same time as the ideas of the Renaissance were being developed in Europe, three large empires established themselves in the Islamic world, governed by powerful dynasties of different geographic origins and religious principles. The Ottomans ruled from the region of Constantine (in present-day Algeria) to the Euphrates. The Ottomans were Sunni Muslims who set out from Anatolia in the 14th century to conquer an immense territory that initially covered the Balkans, the heart of their empire. They added Constantinople (Istanbul) in 1453 and then continued their expansion in the first half of the 16th century with the conquest of the old Arab core of the Islamic world, which included the holy cities of Arabia, and then North Africa with the exception of Morocco. Lastly, during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent, they entered Eastern Europe conquering, notably, Hungary in 1526. During the same period, from 1510 to 1733, the Safavids imposed Shiism as the official religion on Iran for the first time. After a short period of military domination during the first quarter of the 16th century, they were quickly hemmed in by their powerful Sunni neighbours, the Ottomans to the west and the Mughals to the east, though they did manage to impose their influence on a part of the Caucasus. In 1526 the Mughals, who had migrated from Afghanistan, started to build an empire that eventually covered the whole of the Indian subcontinent. By the 17th century, the “great Mughals” ruled a hundred million subjects, four times the population of the entire Ottoman Empire. Their considerable revenues earned them, in the Western imagination, a reputation for
unequalled splendour. Having achieved its maximum extension at the start of the 18th century during the reign of Aurangzeb, the empire began to fracture, undermined by the rebellions of non-Muslim communities (the Marathas and Rajputs), which eased penetration by Europeans, the British in particular. The Mughal Empire ceased to exist officially in 1858. These three Islamic empires had clear differences in their religious convictions and ethnic and cultural make-up but they had in common an aggressive military policy that had grown out of the old system of the buying of foreign troops, a cultural language – Persian – that they had shared for centuries, and artistic refinement. As they had each developed perfectly identified creative and aesthetic techniques, their cultures shared evident characteristics in the use of materials and artistic choices, the most fundamental being the continued influence of Chinese art. In all three empires, architecture, rug making, metalwork and the working of types of hard stone reached a pinnacle of refinement and sophistication. The first example displayed in the Louvre-Lens of an art common to all three empires is rug making, which emanated from the Ottoman Empire in particular. Small in size when used for religious purposes, the rug designates an individual space for prayer, the only space that counts. As there is no consecrated place in Islam, the masjid – meaning the “place of prostration” from the Arabic word sajada – may effectively be reduced to the size of a small rug. As the materials cannot be exposed to light for long periods, the rugs for display will be rotated on a permanent basis in the sector devoted to the arts
ARTS OF THE COURT
During the Renaissance, the return to the values of Antiquity coupled with scientific and technological progress enabled architecture, sculpture and painting to attain their maximum splendour, however, they also allowed the decorative arts to attain unmatched heights that were appreciated by all the courts of Europe. Ceramics achieved its peak in the 16th and 17th centuries as much in the use of materials as in the imaginativeness of the iconography and forms in the decoration of extremely sophisticated and expensive dishes and vases. Taking inspiration from the use of colour by painters and motifs employed in fashionable engravings, ceramicists succeeded in winning the custom of a refined clientele. Combining the values of practical usage and beauty, faience and porcelain wares were chosen as diplomatic gifts and objects of commercial exchange but were also collected by enlightened art lovers. An astonishing dish decorated with an image of The Triumph of the Patriarch Joseph, after an Engraving by Bernard Salomon (fig. 157) is a reminder of the importance of the city of Urbino in the field of decorated faience or majolica, as it would later be called. Such sumptuous products were first made and decorated in the Italian cities of Florence and Faenza, the latter giving its name to the technique and exporting its expertise throughout Italy and abroad. The Fontana dynasty, a family that was part of the ceramicist community that left Faenza, produced the dish in question. In 1570 the Fontanas settled in Urbino where they worked for the dukes of the city and created large, exquisite and highly decorated pieces characterised by elaborate forms and highly ornate raised designs, with a figurative element – in this case the central medallion – generally surrounded by a profusion of floral ornamentation. Some schools of ceramicists preferred to focus on motifs inspired uniquely by nature, fauna, flora and rocks. The famous French workshop of Bernard de
BAROQUE EUROPE
In Italy after 1520, the Renaissance discovered fresh vigour in the new artistic current of Mannerism, which developed as a reaction to the objective search for perfection that had lain at the heart of the aesthetic research of the artists of the 15th and early 16th centuries. The word “mannerism” – from the Italian manierismo, meaning la bella maniera – lays stress more on the personality of the artist, his technique and the originality of his approach than on the imitation of nature or attempt to achieve universal beauty. Young painters like Giulio Romano, Parmigianino and Pontormo attempted to create effects composed of forms, colours and narratives that would generate an emotional and aesthetic impact on the observer. The “Galerie du Temps” evokes the theme of daring innovations in narration, which was treated anew during the Renaissance and by Mannerism, with an allegorical work, The Rule of Time over the World, Fortune Holding the Sail, and Death at the Helm (fig. 141), a relief probably from the Cimetière des Innocents in Paris, sculpted by an anonymous artist during the 16th century. It shows a strange scene: two allegorical female figures adorn a stylised boat, one (Death) at the stern and the other (Fortune) at the bow; at the centre of the boat an old man holding an hourglass stands on a globe that symbolises the universe. He is of course Time. During this complex period, when the Wars of Religion were intensifying and philosophical questioning of life and the world was increasing, this strange iconography and its treatment refer to both the mysteries of ancient mythologies and the principles of Christianity, but also disclose the multiplicity of the sources of art during this period. During the period of the Counter-Reformation – the violent Catholic ideological reaction against Protestantism at the start of the 17th century – art became an indispensable instrument for the
dissemination of religious ideas. The faithful had to be amazed, appealed to and convinced by art that aroused emotion and appealed to their senses rather than their reason. To do so, artists inspired by some of the principles of Mannerism resorted to dramatic effects, depicting strong lighting contrasts, exaggerated movements and exalted sentiments. With the support of the Church, a new artistic movement – the Baroque – evolved, first in Italy, then right across Europe. Derived from the Portuguese word barroco, meaning an irregular pearl, before it passed into English to mean “ornate” or “extravagant”, the term is perfectly descriptive of this new artistic expression, which, while being a weapon wielded by the Church, fabricated a logic and purpose all of its own and even found success in certain secular transcriptions. By focusing on the senses and sentiments and not the intellect, the Baroque employed effects of surprise, trompe l’oeil, ornamentation, fantasy and excess. In painting, the contrast between light and shadow was essential, curves and volutes replaced straight lines, colours became bright and conflicting, and movement and expressiveness were elemental. However, these characteristics did not lead to a superficial or purely decorative art, quite the contrary: the Baroque is also a deep and interiorised aesthetic current that presents scenes of prayer, meditation and sorrow. The themes of vanitas and death were fundamental. Melancholy (fig. 165) by Domenico Fetti illustrates these intimate aspects of Baroque art: staged out of doors in front of sections of ruined walls, a young woman kneels, her head supported by her left hand as she gazes in reverie at a skull around which her right hand is curled. Long thought to be a representation of the penitent Magdalene, this painting is today unanimously accepted as an allegory of Melancholy, as is borne out by the inclusion of a bound dog, and
167. Georges de La Tour Vic-sur-Seille, Duchy of Lorraine (presentday France) 1593–Lunéville, Duchy of Lorraine (present-day France) 1652 c.1642 Oil on canvas The Child Jesus and his Father Joseph at Work, known as Saint Joseph the Carpenter H 137 x W 102 cm RF 1948-27 Donated by Percy Moore Turner, 1948
168. Spain c.1650 Painted wood, glass (eyes), bones (teeth), hemp (cord) Saint Francis Dead H 1.03 x W 0.64 m RF 4211 Purchase, 1988
169. Rembrandt Harmensz Van Rijn, known as Rembrandt Leyde, Netherlands, 1606– Amsterdam, Netherlands, 1669 1661 Oil on canvas Saint Matthew and the Angel H 1.21 x W 1.10 m INV 1738 Collection of the Comte d’Angiviller
FRENCH CLASSICISM
Around 1650, while the Baroque was in full flush, another artistic trend emerged in Europe that also stemmed from the principles of the Renaissance and the fascination for the grandeur of ancient art. With its origin in France rather than Italy, this movement, Classicism, was initially literary but spread to all the fine arts. Reason, perfection and the ideal were its three most important tenets and involved the adoption of precise rules in combination with the creative stimulation of the imagination. The latter, essential point contradicts the simplistic analyses that have been offered of Classicism: not contenting itself with imitation, true art only achieves its potential when it becomes a creation of the mind, and thus the strict principles defended by the earliest academies in France – the Académie Française, Académie de Peinture et de Sculpture, etc., which were all created during the same period – had no more purpose than to discipline inventiveness. This entailed a particular focus on composition and the handling of the narrative while constantly remaining faithful to reality and its study. In no case, then, did Classicism attempt to set passion against intelligence; its approach consisted in understanding and representing the one through the objectivity of the other. Even so, a theoretical debate cast a profound influence on art in France for a hundred years from the end of the 17th century, the “querelle du coloris” (dispute over colours). This aesthetic and essentially academic debate set the defenders of the painting of Rubens, who placed emphasis on expression and colour in painting, against those of Nicolas Poussin, who stressed reason and design. This debate had its origin in 1673 in the second edition of a partisan, dogmatic book written by Roger de Piles, one of the greatest French authorities on
painting, in which he showered praise on Rubens and colour in his Dialogue sur le coloris. The vehement debate that followed took up cudgels on behalf of the ideas of Antiquity – those of Plato, who defended beauty as a spiritual idea, and those of Aristotle, who believed beauty was primarily material – and ended in a victory for colour over design, thus paving the way for a century of chromatic exultancy, as indulged by Watteau, Boucher and Fragonard, in particular. The colour dispute and the confrontation between the Baroque and Classicism are represented in the “Galerie du Temps” by the proximity of two paintings usually hung in different wings of the Louvre, King Ixion Deceived by Juno, Who he Wanted to Seduce by Rubens (fig. 164), which has just been discussed, and the Fête in Honour of Bacchus, Roman God of Wine, known as The Great Bacchanal, painted around 1627–28 by Nicolas Poussin (fig. 172). Once part of the collection of Louis XIV, who had purchased it in 1655 from the Duc de Richelieu in exchange for a debt contracted by the cardinal’s grand-nephew following the loss of a match of jeu de paume, the Great Bacchanal is one of the painter’s youthful works. It is entirely typical of his art during the early years of his career, which was characterised by rare and scholarly subjects, harmonious composition, a refined colour range inspired by the Venetian painters of the previous century, the frequent use of nature as a setting, and the creation of a poetic universe through the postures of the figures. In this work, Poussin was probably illustrating a famous passage from the work Imagines by Philostratus of Lemnos, one already painted by Titian. Taken from the description of a painting gallery seen by Philostratus in a palace in Naples, the passage refers to the delights of life on the island of
THE ENLIGHTENMENT
The constant harking back of European art to the Greek and Roman models of Antiquity is one of the guiding threads that visitors can discover in the “Galerie du Temps”. This is true of portraiture: the sculpted representations of Alexander the Great or Emperor Augustus in the early sections of the gallery prefigure those of Louis XIV Defeating the Fronde and Louis XV, King of France (1715–1774), on Horseback in Roman Costume (fig. 180), a bronze sculpture cast from an original by Edme Bouchardon. The king is shown in the manner of the Roman emperors, looking noble, serene and authoritative, mounted on a walking horse, like a ruler in control of events, unsurprised at his personal power. The return to Antiquity remains clear even though the relations between the Baroque and Classicism are not as clear and conflictual as we might think. The charming Bather (fig. 181) by Étienne-Maurice Falconet was owned by the Comtesse Du Barry, one of the king’s mistresses. It is a masterpiece of French sculpture placed at the intersection of two influences: the Classical reference in the pure lines of the idealised silhouette, and the rocaille – or Rococo – style, which emerged in France and then Europe at large after the Baroque, here visible in the young woman’s sensual pose, the masterly curves of her body and the intimate realism of the scene. Even though she wears her hair in Antique style, this bather is no longer portrayed as Venus or a nymph in some episode from ancient mythology: she is an adolescent girl with a graceful but as yet not fully developed body who hesitantly tests the temperature of the water before bathing, her marble “flesh” seeming to shiver. Both natural and graceful, this sculpture is an allegory of a girl verging on womanhood. Falconet was a friend of Diderot and a stern, demanding intellectual who theorised his art and wished to create universal works. However, protected by one of the royal mistresses, Madame de Pompadour, and by her brother, the Marquis de Marigny, the powerful director of the Bâtiments du Roi, he followed the fashions of the day to satisfy
his clients. During the reign of Louis XV, the fashion was Rococo. Today, it is difficult to defend the argument that Rococo was nothing more than “nuances of the Baroque”, as wrote Heinrich Wölfflin, so established in its own right has it proved. The speed and extent of its spread across the whole of Europe implies there was a direct link between the two styles but the frequent absence of religious references and its unilaterally decorative approach suggests independent artistic choices were being made. It is true that the depreciatory opinion in which this movement was held by the critics during the first half of the 19th century long hindered an objective study. The term “Rococo”, a strange and derisory combination of the Italian word barocco and the notion of “rocaille”, meaning a form of decoration imitating bizarre forms of rocks and stones, offers no help in defining the theoretical conceptions that led to the development of this art form. Elaborated by decorators, architects and ornamentalists carried away by freedom and in quest of pleasure and visual surprises, this ornate style rapidly became an art of the court and infiltrated every technique, from painting to the decorative arts. During the period of the Regency in France that followed the austere reign of Louis XIV, the court hankered after freedom, lightness and a constant sensuality; the vogue developed for more accessible, more natural and less intellectual artistic subjects, enhanced by plastic effects characterised by profusion and freedom of execution, joy and sensuality. Considered from this standpoint, the work of François Boucher, one of the most highly esteemed painters at the court of Louis XV, can be thought of as the most distinctive of the Rococo spirit. Having explored all the genres, from the nude and mythological scenes to portraiture and landscapes, Boucher became the leading proponent of rural scenes, themselves an extension of the fêtes galantes indissolubly linked with the name of Antoine Watteau during the first quarter of the 18th century.
NEOCLASSICAL MOVEMENTS
Neoclassicism was long and unequivocally considered by art historians to be a reaction to the Rococo style, motivated purely by the desire to firmly reinstate the purity of the aesthetic traditions that had their origin in Antiquity and been revisited by the Renaissance and Classicism. After a long period during which creation had been guided by the spirit of the Rococo, in which precedence was given to visual pleasure and a profusion of form and decoration, the Neoclassical doctrine allowed the senses to be once again “subject to reason”. The disarray and theatricality of the Baroque and the superficiality of the Rococo periods were now countered by the precision, purity and seriousness of Neoclassical order. Admittedly, it appears indisputable that JacquesLouis David, one of the leading figures in this movement, developed his oeuvre as a reaction to that of his fleeting mentor, François Boucher, the artist then in fashion. However, it is equally impossible to ignore the many theoreticians in Europe who advocated a return to the virtue, values and techniques of Antiquity under the banner of an idealised conception of art. Nonetheless, this condemnation of the Rococo should in no way lead to a partial or caricatural vision of the renewal of classicism. It has all too often been written, for example, that Neoclassicism distinguished itself from the Baroque and Rococo by its lesser interest in colour and expression to the benefit of its emphasis on the perfection of the line and design. Yet David was also a refined colourist and his capacity to describe the emotions is still renowned today. Thus the notion of antagonism between line and colour – which was to appear once more with the emergence of Romanticism – is erroneous and it is difficult today to discern a clear division between the Baroque, Rococo and Neoclassicism: some artists even picked and chose elements from between these different currents that best suited their art.
190. Francisco José de Goya y Lucientes Fuendetodos, Spain, 1746– Bordeaux, France, 1828 c.1797–1800 Oil on canvas Mariana Waldstein (1763–1808), Ninth Marquesa de Santa Cruz H 1.73 x W 1.25 m RF 1976–69 Donation, 1976
Occasionally vacillating between “Roman severity” and “Alexandrine grace”, Neoclassicism was traversed by “multiple currents that sometimes roused obscure forces beneath an ideal of calm and reason” as the historian Jean Leymarie has elegantly written. The return to the Antique and the desire to give structure to creation in no manner precluded passion or imagination, just as classicism was neither conventional nor dogmatic. Eager to channel creativity, Neoclassicism of course swathed itself in organised theoretical discourse and placed great emphasis on the teaching of the fine arts but it cannot be criticised for its “academic” spirit even though the artists who followed this artistic current were part of the movement to suppress the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture during the Revolution and were throughout Europe the instigators of an ambitious programme that championed a return to the study of nature, a development that was to exert a strong influence on the whole of 19th-century art and take it in the direction of greater realism and credibility. In addition, the extent to which Neoclassicism was implicated in the changes taking place in many countries seeking independence has often been noted, even though, paradoxically, it was an artistic current that knew no national boundaries. Set in motion in Rome and enriched by the excitement surrounding the archaeological excavations underway at Pompeii and Herculaneum, this aesthetic movement that affected all the arts spread widely – into pre-industrial England, pre-revolutionary France, the enlightened monarchy of Austria, the nascent American republic and the absolute monarchy of Russia. This “new Classicism” – neos is Greek for “new” – is not therefore an art movement that is easy to study even though its guiding aesthetic criteria are clearly identified: a return to the principles of Antiquity, a fascination for the creativity and scientific expertise
191. Augustin Pajou Paris, France, 1730– Paris, France, 1809 1783 Terracotta The Painter Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun (1755–1842) H 55 x W 44 x D 21 cm RF 2909 Purchase, 1967
ON THE 1830 REVOLUTION: ART AND POWER IN FRANCE
Previously regarded as a minor genre and rarely valued for itself, with the exception of the 17th-century works of Dutch artists, the landscape became a major theme in the 19th century and was probably the subject that most extensively refreshed the practical and aesthetic theories in painting. The love of nature and its representation became an end in itself; the sites painted by artists were no longer thought of as potential settings or allegorical backgrounds but as fully independent motifs and themes. Narration was no longer a requirement in a work of art or, rather, a work of art was able to have a view of the countryside or coastline as its only subject. The practice of painting en plein air – the vast landscape painting movement, in which France played a leading role – experienced a fundamental turning point around 1830. It was at this time that the Romantic aspirations of an entire generation set emotion and sensibility at the heart of the process of the creation of a work of art, and that the “sentiment of nature” introduced to the landscape genre that extra spark of feeling it had lacked owing to overly invasive technical concerns. Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot was central to this development. Skilled in the orchestration of a variety of components, from his solid Neoclassical training he succeeded in reconciling the practice of plein air painting and the mode of animating landscapes with figures, whether or not they affected the work’s narrative content. A man of his time, and an interpreter of “what he saw with his heart as much as with his eye”, Corot understood the importance of feelings and expression as the driving force of creation but, persuaded that “what we feel is indeed real”, he always espoused the faithful representation
of nature. As the opening work in its last section, the “Galerie du Temps” presents one of his famous “souvenirs”, Ideal Landscape with Ancient Dance, known as Virgilian Dances (fig. 208), a quasimusical variation developed from a site where Corot had worked during one of his innumerable voyages and of which he had taken away a visual, sentimental and poetic memory. Bequeathed to the Louvre Museum by Georges Thomy-Thiéry, a passionate collector of Corot, among others, this amusing reprise of the bacchanals by Nicolas Poussin and Claude Lorrain neatly epitomises the poetics and lyricism elaborated by Corot in his “souvenirs”. No longer attempting simply to portray nature realistically, here he preferred to evoke it in a vision that was already symbolist, motivated purely by the emotions aroused in the viewer gazing upon it. During the same period, Europe was pervaded by the aesthetic ideas of the Romantic movement based on the personal experience and emotional sensibility of the artist, his capacity to invest his work with feelings and expressiveness that would likely transcend it, and his genius to kindle the same emotions in the observer. Having appeared in Germany, England and France around 1760, Romanticism reached its peak about 1830, not just in the fine arts but also in literature and music. In addition to its renewal of artistic techniques and regeneration of aesthetic theories, Romanticism also sought new creative subject matter: its fascination with the Middle Ages and Antiquity, a preference for modern events rather than mythology, and man and nature were all major themes. The Romantic movement loved exaggeration and excess; it loved scouring the twists and turns of the