MusBA will be joining forces with the Tessé Museum in Le Mans and the Louvre Museum to present Sage comme une image? Childhood through the eyes of the artist, an exhibition that explores the roles assigned to children and their representations in art in French society from 1790 to 1850. The exhibition is based on a fertile dialogue between the academic arts (painting and sculpture) and the then new medium of photography.
This still relatively little studied half-century in the history of France was a turbulent time in politics and philosophy and extremely fecund in the arts. What representations of childhood did the painters, sculptors and photographs of this period propose? How did these images adhere to the spirit of the times, and in what ways did they diverge from certain social realities? Can we see ourselves in them still today? Are our perspectives able to accept and understand them all?
The chronological and thematic visit route leads the visitor from the legend of innocence inherited from the Enlightenment to children in the military, from cursed princes to orphans, and from labourers to geniuses, through a large gallery of painted, sculptural or photographic portraits.
Alongside the great names of the period, such as Eugène Delacroix, Théodore Géricault, Anne-Louis Girodet, Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, Camille Corot, Pierre-Jean David d’Angers, James Pradier and Honoré Daumier, the exhibition showcases artists who are less well known because they were women or were far from the Parisian circles, such as Auguste de Châtillon, Jeanne-Elisabeth Chaudet and Sophie Feytaud-Tavel, as well as previously unseen or rarely presented works.
Benefitting from exceptional loans from the Louvre Museum, the exhibition is composed of approximately 100 works (paintings, sculptures, graphic arts works and photographs) from French public and private collections, particularly from the Parisian region and western France. The Bordeaux section also showcases collections from South-West France, with works from several museums in Nouvelle-Aquitaine (Libourne Fine Arts Museum, the Bordeaux Museum of Design and the Decorative Arts, the Musée
Scenography & Graphic design
Philippe Casaban et Éric Charbeau
Exhibition catalogue
Publication by Éditions Liénart, 34 €.
