Press release 2013
IMPRESSIONISTS AND POST-IMPRESSIONISTS
The Birth of Modern Art
Masterpieces from the Musée d’Orsay
FUNDACIÓN MAPFRE, MADRID
2 February - 5 May 2013
Paul Gauguin, Breton Peasant Women, 1894
Oil on canvas, 66,5 x 92.7 cm
OFFICIAL OPENING
Thursday, 31 January 2013
ADDRESS
FUNDACIÓN MAPFRE, Paseo de Recoletos, 23. 28004 Madrid
EXHIBITION DATES
2 February – 5 May 2013
CHIEF CURATORS
Guy Cogeval, President of the Musée d'Orsay and Musée de
l'Orangerie public establishment and Pablo Jiménez Burillo,
Director General of FUNDACIÓN MAPFRE – Instituto de Cultura
CURATOR
Caroline Mathieu, curator, Musée d’Orsay
Exhibition organised by FUNDACIÓN MAPFRE, curated in collaboration with Musée d’Orsay. Works
loaned exceptionally by Musée d’Orsay
www.exposicionesmapfrearte.com/impresionistasypostimpresionistas
INTERNATIONAL PRESS CONTACT:
Marina Bradbury, Account Manager
AGENDA
31 rue Ballu 75009 Paris
T +33 1 49 95 08 06
E: mbradbury@agendacom.com
FUNDACIÓN MAPFRE – Instituto de Cultura
Paseo de Recoletos nº 23. Madrid – ESPAGNE
Alejandra Fernandez
t +34 91 581 84 64
alejandra@fundacionmapfre.org
www.facebook.com/fundacionmapfrecultura
1
Overview
The exhibition IMPRESSIONISTS AND
POST-IMPRESSIONISTS: THE BIRTH OF
MODERN ART, which will be open to the
public from 2 February to 5 May 2013,
will feature a selection of 78
masterpieces from the Musée d´Orsay.
Seen for the first time in Spain, these
works trace the history of the birth of
modern art.
In
January
2010,
the
FUNDACIÓN
MAPFRE devoted a major show to the
Impressionist movement. The exhibition
we
present
today
illustrates
what
happened after that great revolution,
when the Impressionists’ contributions to
art were assimilated and developed
through different painterly languages,
paving the way to the 20th-century avant-
Claude Monet, Rouen Cathedral, the West Portal and
Saint-Romain Tower, Full Sunlight, Harmony in Blue
and Gold, 1893, Oil on canvas, 107 x 73 cm Musée
d'Orsay, Paris © Musée d'Orsay, Dist. RMN-Grand
Palais / Patrice Schmidt
gardes.
The exhibition begins with Monet’s early series (the Haystacks, the Poplars and the
Cathedrals), and ends with Vuillard’s decorative work in The Public Gardens. Between these
two landmarks are Renoir’s works featuring bathers, the development of Neo-Impressionism
(illustrated by works by such artists as Seurat, Signac and Pissarro), Cézanne’s constructivism,
Toulouse-Lautrec’s portrayals of working-class life, the flight to Brittany by Gauguin and his
friends, the creation of the Nabis group, including Serusier, Maurice Denis, Bonnard and
Vallotton, and Van Gogh’s madness in Arles.
The exhibition is organised by FUNDACIÓN MAPFRE, and curated by Musée d´Orsay, which,
exceptionally, has loaned these masterpieces.
2
KEY WORKS IN THE EXHIBITION
The exhibition shows 78 major works, including a significant number major artists from this
period. An appreciation of the work of these artists is key to understanding this specific
historic context. The works include:
1. Monet’s main series of paintings:
Haystacks: at the end of summer
Wind Effect, Series of The Poplars
Rouen Cathedral. Front Portal and Rouen Cathedral. The West Portal and Saint-Romain
Tower, Full Sunlight, Harmony in Blue and Gold
London, Houses of Parliament. The Sun Shining through the Fog
Waterlily pond, green harmony
2. Renoir, The Bathers
3. Paul Signac, Entrance to the Port of Marseilles
4. Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, The Clown Cha-U-Kao
5. An important display of Van Gogh’s artistic periods:
Terrace of a Café on Montmartre
Self Portrait
Eugène Boch
Imperial Fritillaries in a Copper Vase.
6. Paul Cézanne, Apples and oranges and Portrait of Madame Cézanne
7. Gauguin, Les Alyscampes, Cows by the Sea, Yellow Haystacks
8. Paul Sérusier, The Talisman
9. Maurice Denis, The Muses
10. Vuillard, In Bed
11. Vuillard, Public Gardens
EXHIBITION OVERVIEW
In 1886, the eighth and final show given by the Impressionist group took place at the
exhibition rooms of the art dealer Durand-Ruel. Over the course of these eight legendary
exhibitions, traditional ideas about painting were blown to pieces. Critics and audiences began
to assimilate stylistic innovations, and the Impressionists began to make a name for
themselves.
3
Parallel to this, more and more exhibitions were taking place on the margin of the academic
Salon. The so-called Salon of the Independents in Paris and the Salon of the XX in Brussels,
amongst others, appeared, so that the combative attitude that had united the Impressionists
against the academic establishment no longer had any meaning. The strategic, stylistic and
political differences between these artists multiplied and, in fact, none of the leading members
of the group, apart from Degas, Pissarro and Morisot, were present at the final group show,
though such artists as Gauguin, Seurat, Signac and Redon, who were beginning to blaze a trail
towards a new art, were represented.
In short, the period from 1886 to 1900 saw the emergence of the most profound and radical
modernity. Impressionism evolved towards different painterly languages, traditionally defined
as Post-Impressionist, which amplified the provocative stance of Impressionism and sketched
out the stylistic paths that would make way for avant-garde styles.
1. THE CRISIS OF IMPRESSIONISM
The Impressionists in general showed became tired of painting the same old themes of the
modern city and its surroundings. More interested in painting itself as language, they
restricted their focus to specific, limited themes in which they could best express their artistic
concerns.
From around 1886, Claude Monet began to focus on the idea of representing the same subject
repeatedly, reflecting the way it changed according to the season, the weather or the light at
different times of day. Forms and subjects seem to dissolve more and more in a painting that
withdraws into itself. The first series began to appear from 1890. The included the Haystacks
(1890), the Poplars (1891) and Rouen Cathedral (1892-1893), all represented in this exhibition.
In the Rouen Cathedral series, from which two paintings are featured (the effect of dull
weather and the effect of morning sun), Monet found one of the most beautiful motifs in his
entire career as a painter. According to legend, he would work on up to 14 paintings at a time,
moving from one to the next according to light and time of day in his efforts to portray the
subtle tones that changed by the very minute in the Norman atmosphere.
4
At the same time, Monet, now living
in Giverny, began to paint his pond
with water lilies, producing works
from which he stripped all remnants
of traditional perspective to achieve
a degree of painterly refinement
that represents his peak of artistic
excellence. In this exhibition, we can
admire the renowned Bassin aux
nymphéas, harmonie verte (Water
Lily Pond, Green Harmony, 1899), in
which all motifs are dissolved in the
most abstract, lyrical atmosphere.
These qualities are also seen in
Monet’s views of the Houses of
Claude Monet, Waterlily pond, green harmony, 1899
Oil on canvas, 89,5 x 92,5 cm
Musée d’Orsay, París © RMN-Grand Palais (musée
d'Orsay) / Hervé Lewandowski
Parliament in London (1904).
Unlike Monet, Renoir, another dominant figure in the Impressionist group, began to show
works again at the academic Salon after 1880, enjoying considerable success thanks to his
portraits, from which an outstanding selection is presented here. However, Renoir’s visits to
Algeria and Italy also reveal the need he felt to renew his painting. The late Renoir period
shows the artist finding in open-air nudes the theme in which to expound his aesthetic
ambitions: The Bathers were, for him, a continuation of 18th-century painting. Likened to “a
Titian painted by Rubens”, his all-engulfing bodies, filling the entire surface of the canvas,
create an atmosphere of fecundity and eternal spring.
2. NEO-IMPRESSIONISM
Camille Pissarro had insisted that his friends Seurat and Signac should take part in the eighth
and last Impressionist exhibition, which aroused considerable controversy. This was when the
art critic Felix Féneon coined the term “Neo-Impressionism” to describe a new type of painting
in which pure colours are juxtaposed in small dots, so that the colours become optically mixed
in the eye rather than on the palette. Neo-Impressionism reflects a dialectic of rupture and
continuity with regard to Impressionism, evincing a powerful awareness of “progress”. The
5
importance of science is evident in this painterly style, which also entails an attack on the
improvised effect of Impressionism.
Seurat went on to perfect his method of optical mixing. His premature death in 1891 could
have signified the end of pointillism, but Signac emerged as an effective leader and an
important theorist for the movement, which had affinities with the social principles of
anarchism in its early years. Signac’s discovery of the Mediterranean led him to symbolise,
through light and pure air, his hope for a better world, as we can appreciate in the masterpiece
Entrance to the Port of Marseille (1911). Henri Cross showed himself to be the most gifted heir
to these Arcadian dreams in such outstanding works Evening Breeze (1893) and The Hair (c.
1892).
3. CÉZANNE AND HIS INFLUENCE
Paul Cézanne, Apples and oranges,
circa 1899
Oil on canvas, 74 x 93 cm
Musée d’Orsay, París © RMN-Grand
Palais (musée d'Orsay) / Hervé
Lewandowski
The exhibition devotes a particularly special place to Cézanne as the nexus of union between
Impressionism and Post-Impressionism. Cézanne had always felt driven to break the rules and
to go beyond the limits imposed by Impressionist technique. He had always been far more
interested in the constructive sense imposed by nature itself and by the necessary
construction of the gaze at objects he proposed to paint.
Cezanne’s father died in 1886, leaving him a generous inheritance that enabled him to live free
from commercial pressure, devoting himself to producing the art he was interested in. The
exhibition features the Portrait of Mme. Cézanne, two important still life pieces –Still Life with
6
Onions and Apples and Oranges– and several Provence landscapes from around the Château
Noir. In them, Cézanne focuses particularly on the role played by different aspects of
composition, paving the way towards Cubism and becoming the father of the early avantgarde movements.
4. TOULOUSE-LAUTREC AND MONTMARTRE
Toulouse-Lautrec’s journey from the
family chateau in Albi to the most
sordid parts of Montmartre continues
to be a fascinating tale. Two broken
legs sustained as a child stunted his
growth,
and
his
height
never
surpassed 1.50 metres. However,
despite
this
and
his
self-
consciousness regarding his physical
ugliness, Toulouse Lautrec showed
the determination to become one of
the most popular personalities and
most
celebrated
artists
of
his
generation.
In 1886, at Cormon’s studio, he met
Van Gogh, Bernard and Anquetin, and
the four friends began to show their
works under the name of the “artists
of the petit boulevard”. Toulouse-Lautrec experimented with highly forced perspectives
inspired by Japanese prints, drawn
with a pure line and featuring subjects
taken from working-class life.
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, The Clown Cha-U-Kao, 1895
Oil on card, 58 x 43 cm,
Musée d’Orsay, Paris © RMN-Grand Palais (musée d'Orsay) /
Hervé Lewandowski
However, unlike Steinlen, Toulouse-Lautrec never pointed an accusing finger at the city’s vices:
his paintings and drawings depict Montmartre’s fleurs du mal tenderly and humanely, without
cynicism or arrogance. His portraits of the great vedettes of the Moulin Rouge unveiled a new
7
style of painting, simple and austere in resources yet highly expressive, born in the shadows of
Montmartre.
5. VAN GOGH
In 1886, Van Gogh reached Paris from Nuenen
and, with his friends Toulouse-Lautrec, Anquetin
and Bernard, began to paint the quartiers of the
French capital. As we can see in La guinguette à
Montmartre and later in Le restaurant de la
Sirène à Asnières, these works featured a highly
expressive, intense use of colour.
In February 1888, Vincent Van Gogh went to
Arles in pursuit of his dream of establishing a
community of artists in southern France.
However, such a community was already
starting up at this time, though far away, in
Pont-Aven, and its leader was Gauguin. Vincent
envied this camaraderie, which was in stark
Vincent van Gogh , Self Portrait, 1887.
Oil on canvas, 44 x 35,5 cm
Musée d’Orsay, Paris © RMN-Grand Palais
(musée d'Orsay) / Gérard Blot
contrast to his solitude in Arles.
At this time, Van Gogh was working on the power of suggestion and symbolic meanings of
colour. As he said to his brother, “instead of trying to reproduce exactly what I have before my
eyes, I use colour more arbitrarily, in order to express myself more forcibly."
Van Gogh managed to persuade Gauguin to work with him in Arles, and they lived together in
the famous yellow house. The pair worked together for nine intense weeks, painting the
Alyscamps, the Roman acropolis in Arles. Thanks to this contact with Gauguin, Van Gogh
became more familiar with radical “synthetism”, using flat planes emphasised by the use of
dark, stained globes, an explicit reference to his fellow artist, as we can see, for example, in
Salle de danse à Arles (The Dance Hall in Arles, 1888).
8
After the famous incident in which Van Gogh cut off his ear and gave it to a prostitute, Gauguin
returned to Paris, and Van Gogh was voluntarily admitted to Saint Remy. His self-portraits
leave no doubt as to his suffering, nor that he continued to believe in the healing power of
painting.
6. GAUGUIN AND PONT-AVEN
Paul Gauguin, Breton
Peasant Women, 1894
Oil on canvas, 66,5 x
92.7 cm
Musée d’Orsay, Paris ©
RMN (Musée d'Orsay) /
Hervé Lewandowski
Gauguin took up residence in the town of Pont Aven in 1886. "I like Brittany”, he would write
two years later, “It is savage and primitive”. Brittany had been isolated for many years, and still
conserved a lifestyle that far removed from the industrial, modern contemporary age. Since
1860, this had been the home of a cosmopolitan colony of artists who managed to live on next
to nothing. The austere character, mystical fervour and violent nature of the region were a
revelation for Gauguin and his friends.
It was in this setting that Gauguin met Emile Bernard, with whom he created a new, synthetic,
essential painting style that eliminated details and involved outlining forms with a black stroke
reminiscent of the lead in stained glass. By rejecting the picturesque quality of the place, they
also rejected the natural expression of the landscape: "Do not copy nature too much,” Gauguin
said, “Art is an abstraction. Extract from nature while dreaming before it".
The exhibition presents several important works by Gauguin from this period, including Marine
avec vache (1888), La meule jaune (1889) and the renowned Paysannes bretones (1894)
9
7. NABIS
In October 1888, Paul Sérusier showed his
companions at the Académie Jullian -Maurice
Denis, Ibels, Paul Ranson and Pierre Bonnard- a
small wood panel that he had just painted in
Pont Aven under the orders of Paul Gauguin.
The artist had urged his young follower to
translate nature in pure colours so that, for the
first time, a painting of what Maurice Denis
called in his Diaries "a plane surface covered
with colours assembled in a certain order”
came into being. This small oil on wood
painting, entitled The Talisman, and which we
now present in this exhibition, is one of the
most iconic pieces in art history, as it showed
clearly, for the first time, what painting would
be like in the 20th century: “a plane surface
Paul Sérusier, The Talisman, the Aven River at
the Bois d'Amour, 1888
Oil on wood, 27 x 21 cm
Musée d'Orsay, Paris © RMN (Musée d'Orsay) /
Hervé Lewandowski
with forms and colours”, opening up the door
to abstraction and the objectual concept of the picture.
Inspired by the feelings aroused by The Talisman, this group of artists adopted the collective
name of the Nabis, a mysterious word that meant “prophet”, “chosen one”, in both Hebrew
and Arabic. Their concept of painting was as “a group of chords, definitively removed from the
naturalist idea". This style was enriched by an interest in the material nature of painting, for
which the works of Van Gogh and Cézanne provided crucial examples.
The stylistic possibilities offered by this new approach to painting were developed by artists of
very different temperament: whilst Bonnard and Vuillard explored intimist, sensitive lines,
Roussel focused on bucolic themes and Dénis, Sérusier and Ranson were attracted by a
Catholic mysticism. In all cases, however, the most banal subject was uplifted as the
representation of a silent life full of enigmas. Their characters are isolated, solitary, clearly
imbued with an inner life set in the most inscrutable places of the human soul.
10
In parallel with Nabis, the sweeping current of Art Nouveau broke away from depicting people
and history, focusing instead on the decorative (following the sweep of the brushstroke and
the harmonic repetition of motifs). This became increasingly important and the artists involved
went on to work directly on decorative projects. For the first time, FUNDACIÓN MAPFRE will
present crucial works from this period, including The Muses by Maurice Denis, and Vuillard’s
famous work The Public Gardens.
CATALOGUE
The exhibition is marked by the publication of a catalogue containing five essays by the
following authors:
Pablo Jiménez Burillo, Director of FUNDACIÓN MAPFRE Institute of Culture
Guy Cogeval, President of the Orsay and Orangerie museums
Caroline Mathieu, chief curator at the Musée d’Orsay and exhibition curator
Isabelle Cahn, curator at the Musée d’Orsay
Dominique Lobstein, Head of the Musée d’Orsay Library
The catalogue also contains presentations of the seven sections into which the exhibition is
organised with an introduction to each and reproductions of all the works, accompanied by
the corresponding index information.
Finally, the catalogue closes with an illustrated chronology for the 1886-1914 period and a
bibliography.
EDUCATION PROGRAMME
Parallel to the exhibition Impressionists and Post-Impressionists. The Birth of Modern Art and
as has been customary for several years, the FUNDACIÓN MAPFRE Institute of Culture is
organising tour-workshops aimed at schools and families.
Tour-workshops for schools: aimed at infant, primary, secondary, Baccalaureate and other
school pupils.
11
Tour-workshops for families: for children from 4-6 years, from 6-12 years and from 12-16
years.
Where: Salas Recoletos. Paseo de Recoletos, 23. 28004 Madrid.
Useful information and further details: www.fundacionmapfre.com. Tel. +34 91-3232872
AUDIO GUIDES
The FUNDACIÓN MAPFRE provides the following services for this exhibition:
-
Audioguides in Spanish and English
-
Audioguides with audio description, with script and production specifically designed
for users with visual impairment, aimed at making them as autonomous as possible in
the site, and featuring the use of descriptive techniques to transform the images into
sound descriptions.
-
Signguides: portable multimedia devices equipped with a screen that shows a video
describing selected works in the exhibition using sign language and subtitles.
WEBSITE
In order to expand the exhibition content and make it accessible to the public, the FUNDACIÓN
MAPFRE has devoted a webpage to the show, containing all this content:
http://www.exposicionesmapfrearte.com/impresionistasypostimpresionistas
International Press contact
For press trip opportunities, interview requests and high res images, please contact
Marina Bradbury, Account Manager
AGENDA – International communications agency for arts & tourism
31 rue Ballu
75009 Paris
FRANCE
T +33 1 49 95 08 06
E: mbradbury@agendacom.com
W: www.agendacom.com
12