Impressionist works, caricatures, lithographs, historical documents … The exhibition The new Paris: from Monet to Morisot Related, until June 9, the upheavals that shaped contemporary Paris.
The Haye Museum of Fine Arts will open an exhibition dedicated to the changes that transfigured Paris in the 19th century on Saturday, through the gaze of Impressionists such as Claude Monet, Auguste Renoir or Berthe Morisot. Baptized The new Paris: from Monet to Morisotthe exhibition combines impressionist works, caricatures, lithographs and historical documents, relating upheavals that have shaped contemporary Paris.
At the center of the exhibition sits three tables by Monet, made in 1867 and representing three views of the capital painted from a balcony of the Louvre museum, when the artist was still only a 26 -year -old art student. Of a gesture considered radical at the time, Monet, through these three works, “Turned up to the old masters (du Louvre) to paint modern life in the streets”explained the exhibition commissioner Frouke Van Dijke, during a presentation. This artistic turning point reflects the upheavals that Paris experienced in the 19th century, like major works that modernized the medieval city, giving it its emblematic Haussmann boulevards.
The sunny urban landscapes of the impressionists coexist within the exhibition with photographs, lithographs and archive documents also showing the shadows of this transition, the growth of the city having pushed the poorest on the periphery, and the Franco Prussian war and the siege of Paris still weighing on the spirits.
“I think painting never gets rid of the historical context”explained Ms. Van Dijke to AFP. “The novelty of this exhibition is really to see this juxtaposition of the Palais des Tuileries de Monet next to a photo of the ruins of this palace, to add this historical context and seek these contrasts. »»
Representing the Garden of the Infante, the Quai du Louvre and the Saint-Germain-l’Auxerrois church, the three tables of Monet are exceptionally gathered in The Hague, the first two from the collections of the Allen Memorial Art Museum D ‘Oberlin (United States) and the Nationalgalerie de Berlin (Germany). The exhibition will be held from February 15 to June 9, 2025 at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in The Hague.