International Art News

From March 14 to July 15, 2012 – The Musée Maillol

The power, glory and passions of a female painter.
Born “Artemisia Gentileschi,” (1593/1654) she was the daughter of one of Rome’s greatest painters of the Baroque period.
An emblem of feminism in painting, a strong woman who traced her own destiny against all odds -including the jealousy of her peers and her own rape when she was a young girl. Agnés Merlet made a movie on her in 1997. She is one of these icons who transcend her time and can only be compared to Frida Kahlo or Camille Claudel, other art passionarias. Artemisia painted Bibe heroines who kenw how to deal with men, such as Judith, Dalila or Bethsabel. But not only them. She also paintd the sweet female faces of musicians or thinkers.

In 17th century Italy, a woman was treated by society like a juvenile throughout her life: she belonged to her father, her husband, her brothers or her sons. However, Artemisia Gentileschi broke all those rules; she belonged only to her art. In her search for glory and freedom, she worked for princes and cardinals, earning her living from her brush and tirelessly creating a body of work. Such was her talent and creative power that she became one of the most famous painters of her time and one of the world’s greatest artists.

Her personal life and her career were both profoundly influenced by the rape that she endured in her youth, and the notorious court action brought by her father against her aggressor, Agostini Tassi. The scandal has also been a factor in the lack of recognition for her undoubted genius. As with Caravaggio, it has taken more than three centuries for her work to be fully recognised once again and to be universally appreciated.

On show for the first time in France, the exhibition at the Musée Maillol now provides an opportunity to discover the paintings of Artemisia Gentileschi.

Museum Hours

11 February 2011 to 08 May 2011 – Nantes Museum of Fine Arts
This exhibition explores the theatre as a poetic and pictorial principle for the great French painters – Coypel, de Troy and Van Loo – of the first half of the 18th century. Their tragic heroines and splendid settings vie with those of such illustrious playwrights as Racine and Corneille and men of the opera like Lully and Quinault.
The exhibition The Theatre of the Passions (1697-1759): Medea, Cleopatra, Iphigenia and others, at the Nantes Museum of Fine Arts (11 February – 8 May 2011) brings together the top international specialists in an exploration of the dramatic as a poetic and pictorial principle for the great French painters of the first half of the 18th century: Antoine and Charles-Antoine Coypel, Jean-François de Troy and Carle Van Loo. Taking their inspiration from the most influential playwrights (Racine, Corneille) and musicians – among them Lully – of their era, these painters opted for theatrical artifice as a creative starting point. Their tragic heroines – Cleopatra, Medea, Esther, Iphigenia – explore the rhetoric of passion against stunning backdrops. The theatrical illusion reaches its apogee in the magnificent Fragments from Opera – which draws directly on the lyrical drama of Philippe Quinault – by Charles-Antoine Coypel, who was both painter and playwright. The exhibition unfolds the creative process from initial sketches through to the enormous tapestries woven in the Gobelins workshops.
For the first time since the 18th century, remarkable groups of works have been brought together through generous loans by such major institutions as the Louvre, the museums in Lille, Montpellier and Strasbourg, and the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. A programme of exhibition-related events will emphasise interchange between the arts – theatre, opera, ballet – and offer the public new insight into the richness of these works of art.

Museum Hours