THE MORNING LIST
A plethora of exhibitions are planned to celebrate 150 years of Impressionism. With not only works that relate to this movement, but also works by contemporary artists who work on the changing effects of light, color and time. Around ten of them offer an opportunity to approach the sea or the faces of children seen by the painters of the time, the South of Berthe Morisot, the confrontation of Marc Desgranchamps with Norman landscapes or the neon lights installed by Laurent Grasso in the ruins of Jumièges abbey.
The South by Berthe Morisot
In 1874, in the studio of the photographer Nadar in Paris, the first exhibition of the “society anonymous cooperative of artists” took place who would become, by the grace of a malicious critic, the “Impressionists”. Only one woman participated, Berthe Morisot (1841-1895). Born into good society (her father was a prefect, then a magistrate at the Court of Auditors), she turned out to be rebellious, wanted to be a painter, and notably followed the lessons of Corot. She participated in seven of the eight impressionist exhibitions.
According to a critic of Figaro, “with her, feminine grace is maintained amidst the excesses of a delirious mind”, but it is the first time that a woman has been recognized as an important figure in an avant-garde movement.
She made two winter stays in Nice, in 1881-1882 and 1888-1889. In this city, the Jules Chéret Museum of Fine Arts has decided to evoke them and brings together, which is no small feat, almost all of the paintings created during these two periods, i.e. around sixty canvases. They are confronted with works by Renoir and Monet, also painted on the shores of the Mediterranean, including The Villas in Bordighera, which the second offered to Berthe Morisot and which she kept all her life. Ha. b.
“Berthe Morisot in Nice, impressionist stops”. Jules Chéret Museum of Fine Arts, in Nice, from June 7 to September 29.
Marc Desgrandchamps facing the landscapes of Normandy in Yvetot
The case is rare: a contemporary artist, Marc Desgrandchamps, after four decades of paintings which have never seemed particularly close to impressionism, voluntarily submits himself to the test of the landscapes of Normandy which are commonly associated with names of Degas, Monet or Pissarro.
He spends time in the Caux region and on the coast. He takes visual notes there. Then returns to his workshop, which is located in Lyon, and gets to work: a work which is, inseparably, that of memory, of the eye and of the hand which lays down the color. Elements of what he saw appear in the form of traces and – we must use this word – impressions.
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