In the Presence of Things: Four Centuries of European Still-Life Painting
A revival of interest in still life among avant garde painters in France will be illustrated through the works of the Realists and the new stylistic language of Impressionism. A centerpiece of this part of the show will be the museum鈥檚 own Still-life with Melon by Claude Monet. At the end of the 19th century still life was particularly appealing to Post-Impressionist painters like 颁茅锄补苍苍别, Van Gogh and Gauguin, who will be represented by a number of key loans. The exhibition will show the transformation of the genre into a vehicle for ever more radical pictorial experimentation in the work of Picasso, Braque and Matisse. Still life will be shown to have allowed artists to engage and critique contemporary society. It was also overlaid with the new realities of the subjective experience in the work of Magritte and 顿补濒铆. The fragmentation and reinvention of the very category of still life will be explored through sculptures and artists鈥 use of actual objects as works of art.
This is the proposed journey of stil-life painting in Western Art through different ages and geographical places, illustrated with major works by painters who have treated this artistic genre. Still life was the pretext for painters鈥 explorations, and it is the source of fascination to many museum visitors.
The exhibition is being curated by Professor Neil Cox, Graduate Director, University of Essex, a specialist in twentieth-century French art. He wrote his PhD thesis on Picasso, and is the author of a vast bibliography.
A revival of interest in still life among avant garde painters in France will be illustrated through the works of the Realists and the new stylistic language of Impressionism. A centerpiece of this part of the show will be the museum鈥檚 own Still-life with Melon by Claude Monet. At the end of the 19th century still life was particularly appealing to Post-Impressionist painters like 颁茅锄补苍苍别, Van Gogh and Gauguin, who will be represented by a number of key loans. The exhibition will show the transformation of the genre into a vehicle for ever more radical pictorial experimentation in the work of Picasso, Braque and Matisse. Still life will be shown to have allowed artists to engage and critique contemporary society. It was also overlaid with the new realities of the subjective experience in the work of Magritte and 顿补濒铆. The fragmentation and reinvention of the very category of still life will be explored through sculptures and artists鈥 use of actual objects as works of art.
This is the proposed journey of stil-life painting in Western Art through different ages and geographical places, illustrated with major works by painters who have treated this artistic genre. Still life was the pretext for painters鈥 explorations, and it is the source of fascination to many museum visitors.
The exhibition is being curated by Professor Neil Cox, Graduate Director, University of Essex, a specialist in twentieth-century French art. He wrote his PhD thesis on Picasso, and is the author of a vast bibliography.
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