Poppies, snowy landscapes, but also floodwaters and smoking factories: around a hundred masterpieces from the Musée d'Orsay will circulate in museums in France to raise awareness of climate change, announced the Musée d'Orsay and the Ministry of Defense. Culture, Tuesday January 21.
Forty-nine paintings, drawings, photographs or masterpieces of the decorative arts will be presented from March to July in 31 museum institutions in twelve regions of France, from Brest to Tulle, Tours, Avignon via Pont-Aven or Saint- Quentin. In Paris, around fifty works will be highlighted through a thematic tour in the permanent collections of the temple of impressionism.
Around Monet, Manet, Redon, Courbet, Caillebotte or Signac, landscapes, flora, fauna, disappeared for some, will open to the “reflection” at the heart of thematic exhibitions, visits, conferences and workshops in relation to their local context, explained Sylvain Amic, president of the public establishment of the Orsay and Orangerie museums, during a press conference.
“The current events reinforce the idea that museums have a role to play (in raising awareness of climate change). These works of art are archives of the planet.” They bear witness to the upheavals initiated in the 19th century, in full industrialization, “captured by the artists”underlined Sylvain Amic.
For example, the Girodet museum in Montargis, whose collection was ravaged in 2016 by a flood, will host The Flood in Port-Marly by Alfred Sisley and counting “to honor heritage memory by presenting the traces of this disaster within the museum and in the surrounding area”detailed its director Sidonie Lemeux-Fraitot.
-The Musée d'Orsay will also publish in the spring 100 works that tell the story of the climatea book bringing together world climate experts and museum curators offering an analysis of climate change through its collections. Among these works, the polar bear sculpted by François Pompon alone embodies environmental challenges. Alongside this emblematic figure, a multitude of other species delighted painters in the 19th century, such as pollinators, earthworms or fish, like the Loue trout painted by Gustave Courbet in 1873, now threatened, presented in Ornans (Doubs), his hometown.
A “demonstration in action of what I wear, accessibility to culture for all”greeted the Minister of Culture, Rachida Dati. “Becoming aware of climate change and above all becoming aware of the need to act, this also involves our sensitivity. This way of circulating works, of taking them to meet audiences, and especially audiences who are far from the large urban centers, it must become a reflex”she added, recalling her objective of facilitating access to culture, particularly in rural areas.
The Musée d'Orsay wishes to repeat the operation each year around a social subject. In 2026, it will be “work”specified Sylvain Amic.
