2024-03-17 05:01:00
the essentials Until March 19, the Ingres-Bourdelle Museum (MIB) is hosting two works by Gustave Caillebotte as part of the 150 years of Impressionism. Florence Viguier, director of the MIB, paints a portrait of this major and long-forgotten artist.
Perhaps it is the prerogative of the greatest. Long shunned or simply forgotten, the work of Gustave Caillebotte (1848-1894) has been back in favor for several decades. Famous for his painting Parquet planers or urban scenes of everyday life, the French painter gradually abandoned realism in favor of impressionism. As part of the 150 years of this movement embodied in particular by Monet and Renoir and celebrated this spring throughout France, the Ingres-Bourdelle Museum (MIB) was chosen to host Les Soleils, Petit-Gennevilliers garden, loaned free of charge by the Musée d’Orsay. In the region, only the museums of Toulouse-Lautrec, in Albi, and Fabre, in Montpellier, have this privilege.
“When I was asked, I did not react immediately because there is no link between Ingres and Impressionism,” recognizes Florence Viguier, the director of the MIB. But it turns out that chance does things well. “We are currently lending Console vaseby Delacroixat the Giverny museum, which is the reference in terms of impressionism since it is the city of Claude Monet, for the exhibition Flower power. In exchange, the management of Giverny made a remarkable gesture by lending us one of their most beautiful paintings with Parterre de marguerites,” continues the curator.
This painting of daisies, which was the subject of a major restoration completed in 2020, was one of the decorative elements of the house of Gustave Caillebotte, in Gennevilliers, which appears in The Suns, on loan from Orsay. It must be said that the artist was fascinated by flowers. Passionate about horticulture, he did not hesitate to immortalize the many varieties of his garden with these perspectives bordering on photography which contribute to his genius. “These are incongruous points of view for the time. In The Suns, we even have the impression that he is painting a portrait of sunflowers. And this is the first time that these two paintings are exhibited together,” notes the director of the MIB.
The Giverny museum has also loaned a video which recreates the painter’s house in 3D. DDM – MASSIP MANUAL
Monet’s Water Lilies inspired by Caillebotte’s daisies?
It is indeed touching to observe this house in the background of Suns then to project oneself inside with Daisy flower bed on the dining room wall. Moreover, these fragments of painting now reunited, saved from a house which was subsequently bombed during the Second World War, still contain a hole which corresponds to the outline of a piece of furniture. “We know that something is missing but this restoration of the Daisy flower bed was a real puzzle work with 14 small fragments and 3 or 4 large pieces. It’s a very important resurrection and this large format corresponds well to our contemporary sensibilities. We can even detect the beginning of pointillism and it is a painting that opens the field to all modern painting. While it is a milestone that we give more to Monet”, comments Florence Viguier who recalls that Gustave Caillebotte, from a bourgeois family, left more than 60 impressionist paintings on his death, and not the least, to the ‘State.
Like others, the director of the MIB is convinced: he could even have influenced The nymphs, this monumental series of eight paintings created by Claude Monet. “He most certainly saw the omnipresence of daisies at Caillebotte and could have been inspired by them,” analyzes the woman who watches over these two exceptional paintings until May 19*.
The team led by Florence Viguier has set up a creative workshop where everyone is invited to draw a flower which also appears in other MIB paintings. DDM – MASSIP MANUAL
In addition, the Giverny museum has also loaned a video which recreates the Gennevilliers house in 3D. Even virtually, we can wander around this bucolic setting on the banks of the Seine with candor. “We welcome people from all over the world but the people of Montalban do not realize enough the exceptionality of their museum. »
* Guided tour this Sunday, March 17. Contact : museeingresbourdelle.com et 05 63 22 12 91.
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