Painting in the Musée d'Orsay [antikvár]

Introduction The Musée d'Orsay offers a broad panorama of late 19th and early 20th century art. In addition its programme of temporary exhibitions, concerts and audiovisual events lends itself to all forms of interdisciplinary encounters, stressing the complexity of an epoch which was incomparably rich in artistic experience and variety. To avoid confusion and surfeit, the planning of the museum's permanent exhibition rooms is cleatly based on distinctions between techniques and modes of expression; hence, it is easy enough to plan and describe a general tour of the museum, linking the various display rooms while identifying each in a separate way. The aim of this book is to define such a tour, and at the same time to offer a history of painting from about 1850 to the early years of our own century, as illustrated by the collections of the Musée d'Orsay. Before we go into the history of these collections, we should perhaps explain the timespan covered by the museum's programmes. This timespan is circumscribed by the Louvre on one side and the Musée national d'Art moderne on the other. The latter borderline is one that obtrudes quite naturally, ie. the Musée d'Orsay ends where the Musée d'Art moderne begins, in the tumultuous years of 1904-1907 which saw the birth of a completely new pictorial language in fauvism and expressionism, schools which were themselves nurtured by the post-impressionist experience prior to the stunning challenge of the Demoiselles d'Avignon (1907). One might add that these years also saw radical changes in architecture and design, with the decline of Art Nouveau as a standard; for example, the Wienerwerkstátte were created post 1903. It was less easy, however, to determine a preliminary date fot a cut-off within the monolithic 19th century. 1863, the year of the Salon des Refusés, has sometimes been quoted as a suitable juncture ; but in fact 1863 was only really important in terms of French painting, and represents no break in continuity where the other arts are concerned. A further step backward to include the romantic period, which was another possibility, would have required more hanging space than the Musée d'Orsay could supply (in particular for huge canvases like those of Géricault, Delacroix and the Louis-Philippe painters). Thus the decision was taken to set the museum's g early limit at 1848-1850, a time which was redolent of change in every sphere - and not only in the political, economic and social ones. This time-frame contains the public recognition of Millet and Courbet, and with them of "realism", at the Salons of 1849 and 1850-1855 ; the foundation of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood in 1848 ; and the construction of the Crystal Palace (1850-51) and the Nouveau Louvre (from 1852 onwards). The essential role of the first universal exhibitions (London, 1851, Paris, 1855) in the development of historic eclecticism and the confrontation between art and industry was yet another aspect that marked a fundamental mid-century renewal in every area of artistic creativity. In order to mitigate the arbitrary effect of this cut-off date, a certain amount of transitional leeway has been allowed. The first exhibition rooms contain a few later works by great artists of 1800-1850 who continued to be