The Louvre Arrives in Atlanta
The High Museum of Art Welcomes Three Years of Prized Works Straight From Paris
By Jennifer Maciejewski
When Henri Loyrette became the director of the Musée du Louvre in Paris, Michael Shapiro knew that good things were in store for Atlanta’s own High Museum of Art. After all, Shapiro and Loyrette had worked together on two previous projects, most recently the 2002 “Paris in the Age of Impressionism: Masterworks from the Musée d’Orsay” exhibition, during which the two laid the foundation for a long-term relationship. When Shapiro approached Loyrette about partnering with the Louvre to put together a show for the High Museum, the idea quickly escalated beyond the scope of the traditional one-time exhibition that comes and goes within the span of a few months. Through their conversations, the pair outlined an unprecedented three-year collaboration between the two museums and appropriately named it Louvre Atlanta.
Louvre Atlanta will give visitors to the High Museum of Art a firsthand glimpse at hundreds of the Louvre’s priceless treasures during the next three years. “Each of the territorial departments at the Musée du Louvre will be participating in the project, and so there will be curators and, most importantly, great works of art coming to Atlanta from all of those departments,” explained Shapiro, the Nancy and Holcombe T. Green Jr. director of the High Museum of Art. “And so, instead of the 35,000 works of art that are on view at the Musée du Louvre at any one moment in time, which is obviously beyond the scope of any individual … you’ll be able to focus more and have a deeper engagement with the works on display at the High Museum than you would in their normal home in Paris.”
Both museums’ directors and curators worked together to mine the Louvre’s rich holdings and determine which pieces would encompass Louvre Atlanta, with everything from the object’s weight to the available space in the Anne Cox Chambers Wing of the High Museum of Art influencing the decision. While Atlanta will be a temporary home for several well-known works of art, most of the Louvre’s signature pieces, from the “Mona Lisa” to the “Venus de Milo,” will remain in Paris.
An Exhibition in Three Parts
The history of the Louvre will form the framework for the three-year Louvre Atlanta project. In year one, the “Kings as Collectors” exhibition will focus on the formation of the Louvre, with an emphasis on the royal collections amassed by Kings Louis XIV, XV and XVI. “The story begins with Louis XIV, who began to assemble a monumental collection of art and created the academy of fine arts, and the story ends with Louis the XVI, who was overthrown during the French Revolution,” explained David Brenneman, chief curator at the High, the Frances B. Bunzl Family curator of European Art, and the managing curator of Louvre Atlanta. “In the wake of his execution, the revolutionaries continued a plan that started under Louis XV to present the royal collections in what was then the Louvre Palace. The revolutionaries saw that plan through to completion because they wanted to show that they were not simply savages, but that the Revolution was the result of enlightenment; the Louvre would be an example of Enlightenment ideals.”
During year two of Louvre Atlanta, the “Louvre and the Ancient World” exhibition explores the antiquities collected by the Louvre after the museum opened to the public in 1793. In this period, the Louvre focused on systematically expanding its collections, both by purchasing entire collections, such as the Campana Collection in 1861 for the Department of Greek, Etruscan and Roman Antiquities, and acquiring works with the guidance of specialists, like Jean-François Champollion in the area of Egyptian antiquities. In year three, Louvre Atlanta delves into the “Louvre of Today and Tomorrow,” from its current projects to the influence of the works in its collection on contemporary artists.
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Year 1:
Kings as Collectors
On display from Oct. 14, 2006 through Sept. 2, 2007, “The Royal Collections” will serve as the central exhibition for Louvre Atlanta’s inaugural year. Assembled during the reigns of Louis XIV and Louis XVI, the 15 paintings and 17 sculptures and decorative arts objects that will make up the exhibition illustrate both the artistic interests of the kings and the ways in which the monarchs used art to glorify themselves. Highlights include Raphael’s “Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione,” Rembrandt’s “Saint Matthew and the Angel” and Nicolas Poussin’s “Et in Arcadia Ego.”
“There is a wonderful selection of paintings, all of which are extraordinarily beautiful,” Brenneman asserted. “The portrait by Raphael is an extraordinarily important painting. It was painted by Raphael in the early part of the 16th century, and it represents a very close friend who wrote ‘The Book of the Courtier,’ the first manual on how to comport oneself at court and the qualities that one needed to exhibit in order to be a truly effective and great courtier. This particular portrait is a very sensitive portrait of a friend that in my view, in terms of its impact, rivals any of the great portraits of the Renaissance or after. This painting has never been to the United States,” he continued. After four months, Raphael’s “Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione” will return to the Louvre, at which point it will be replaced by Poussin’s “Et in Arcadia Ego.”
“Kings as Collectors” will also include two focus exhibitions: “The King’s Drawings” and “The Decorative Arts of the Kings.” The first focus exhibition, “The King’s Drawings,” will run from Oct. 14, 2006 through Jan. 28, 2007. The exhibition’s 57 drawings will showcase works by major French artists who served the crown, such as Le Brun, Boel, Mignard and Coypel, as well as drawings from major early private collections, including Eberhard Jabach and Pierre-Jean Mariette, which were acquired by the kings in the 17th and 18th centuries. Other featured artists will include Grünwald, Dürer, Rembrandt, Rubens, Watteau and Raphael, whose “Head of an Angel,” which was a study for the famous Vatican fresco, “The Expulsion of Heliodorus,” will be on display.
From March 3 through Sept. 2, 2007, “The Decorative Arts of the Kings” will replace “The King’s Drawings” as the focus exhibition. “Beginning with Louis XIV, the kings were trying to establish France as the major producer of luxury goods in the world, something that France is still known for today,” Brenneman said.
The exhibition’s 53 objects demonstrate the exceptional skills and knowledge of French artists and artisans in the 17th and 18th centuries. Representative works include items manufactured in royal factories, such as Les Gobelins, a tapestry factory, and Sèvres, a porcelain factory, as well as those crafted by distinguished French goldsmiths, silversmiths and cabinetmakers, including François-Thomas Germain and Robert-Joseph Auguste.
Year 2:
The Louvre and the Ancient World
In year two, Louvre Atlanta will focus on the growth and development of the Louvre’s collection during the Napoleonic reign and the Enlightenment, a period with an increased interest in ancient art and archaeology. The central exhibition, “The Louvre and the Ancient World,” will feature 69 masterpieces from the Louvre’s Egyptian, Near Eastern and Greco-Roman antiquities departments. On view from October 2007 through September 2008, one of the exhibition’s highlights is “The Tiber,” a marble statue that personifies the historic Roman river. It has not left the Louvre since its acquisition by Napoleon.
The phase will also feature two focus exhibitions. “The Eye of Josephine,” which will run from October 2007 through February 2008, brings together 48 works from the influential collection of Greco-Roman and Egyptian antiquities that were installed by the Empress Josephine at Malmaison, her residence located on the outskirts of Paris. From April through September 2008, the second special exhibition, “Houdon in France and America,” will present 20 works from Jean-Antoine Houdon, whose portraiture includes main Enlightenment figures, such as Diderot, Voltaire and Rousseau, as well as two of America’s founding fathers, George Washington and Benjamin Franklin.
Year 3:
The Louvre of Today and Tomorrow
The final phase of Louvre Atlanta, the “Louvre of Today and Tomorrow,” will explore the impact of the Louvre’s collections on the art world today. The exhibition, which will run from October 2008 through September 2009, will focus on the Louvre’s creation of the Department of Islamic Art, the Louvre-Lens project, and its policy of openness to contemporary art, an important development given that the cut-off point for the Louvre’s permanent collections was 1848.
The special exhibition for the third phase, “Claes Oldenburg and Coojse van Bruggen: The Artists Select Still-Lifes from the Collection of the Louvre,” will run from March through September 2009. In it, contemporary artists Oldenburg and Bruggen will select still-lifes from the Louvre that mirror Oldenburg’s work, which is on display at the High. By blending classical works with contemporary pieces, Louvre Atlanta is “facilitating the essential dialogue between the ‘Old Masters’ and living artists,” Loyrette noted.
A Rewarding Experience
During the next three years, Louvre Atlanta will offer visitors a range of programs that will enable them to take a closer look at both the museum and its masterpieces, from symposiums and lectures to cultural exchanges and seminars for Georgia educators. But be warned: even if you only plan to attend one event, once you scratch the surface of the Louvre’s rich history, you’ll find yourself returning to the High again and again to dig deeper.
“There is nothing that we like more than providing the opportunity for as many people as possible to come into direct and intimate, personal contact with great works of art,” Shapiro said. “The Louvre Atlanta project means that we will be able to do that on a very regular, sustained basis for the next three years. I hope that our community and our region embrace this opportunity because it is potentially a great new model for global museum collaborations. We created a program that, at the end of three years, if people come to all the different rotations and exhibitions during that time, I believe they will be the most knowledgeable people about the best-known art museum in the world. I think that will be an amazing reward,” he added.
For More Information
High Museum of Art
404-733-440
www.high.org
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