Chardin
dal 10/3/2000 al 29/5/2000
Segnalato da
10/3/2000
Chardin
Royal Academy of Arts, London
This exhibition, which celebrates the 300th anniversary of Chardin's birth, will be the first significant exhibition of his work ever to have been held in this country. Chardin painted portraits, still-lifes and contemporary interior scenes which he captured with an exceptional intensity of emotion. With over 60 of his most beautiful and important works, the exhibition will reaffirm Chardin's position as one of the most single-minded and talented painters of the 18th century in France.
Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin was born in 1699 and lived his entire life in Paris. He rejected traditional art-school training in favour of working directly from nature. However, with two of his most important early still-life compositions, The Ray (1725-6) and The Sideboard (1728), he gained acceptance into the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture at the Louvre at the age of only 27. Here he launched his career in painting still-life, helping to elevate it to an art form in its own right. Chardin's paintings continued to be successful in the Salons of the Academy and his reputation grew internationally. Chardin holds a unique position in the history of 18th-century painting. Strongly influenced by late 17th-century Dutch paintings, he chose to reject the rococo extravagance of his contemporaries such as Boucher, Fragonard and Watteau.
The exhibition, arranged chronologically, will survey all aspects of his career. It will bring together still-life masterpieces in which he composes everyday household objects such as fruit, game, fish, glass and silver with extreme delicacy and simplicity. His extraordinary use of paint enabled him to capture the glint of light on silver or glass or the bloom of a peach. Diderot, the art critic and most perceptive interpreter of Chardin's work, described Chardin's compositions as: '...sufficiently magical to drive one to despair...'. The exhibition also includes Chardin's celebrated contemporary genre paintings, many of which are similar in their timeless quality to the work of Vermeer or De Hooch. Through his portrayal of single figures such as kitchen maids at work and children absorbed in their games, Chardin beautifully captures
moments of stillness in the day-to-day life of a simple Parisian household.
A four-venue exhibition, the show is currently at the Grand Palais in Paris and will then travel to the Kunstmuseum, Düsseldorf, and to the Royal Academy before going on to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
ORGANISATION
The exhibition has been organised by Pierre Rosenberg, Director of the Louvre, Paris. Norman Rosenthal, Exhibitions Secretary, and Isabel Carlisle, Curator, are responsible for the exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts.
LOANS
Chief lenders to the exhibition include the Louvre; the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm; the Thyssen Collection, Madrid; the Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe; the Metropolitan Museum, New York, as well as Private Collections.
CATALOGUE
A fully illustrated catalogue accompanies the exhibition. Essays have been contributed by Pierre Rosenberg, Colin Bailey, René Démoris, Marie-Laure de Rochebrune, Antoine Schnapper and Katie Scott. The original French edition of the catalogue has been published by the Réunion des Musées Nationaux. The English-language edition is being published by RA Publications.
Royal Academy of Arts
Burlington House Piccadilly London W1V 0DS For general enquiries, telephone 0171 300 8000
DATES AND OPENING HOURS
Press View: Tuesday 7 March, 10am - 2pm
Private Views: Wednesday 8 - Friday 10 March Open to the public: Saturday 11 March - Sunday 29 May 2000 10am-6pm daily and until 8.30 pm on Fridays (last admission 30 minutes before closing)
ADMISSION
£7 full charge; £6 concessions; £5.50 full-time students; £2.50 12-18 years; £1.50 8-11 years.
For further press information, please contact Katharine Jones or Caroline Birchall on tel: 0171-300 5614, or fax: 0171-300 5886. For photographs, please contact Sarah Davies on 0171-300 5615. If you are printing a number for public information, please print 0171-300 8000.