Portraits and landscapes from the French city of Nantes are now in Moscow

An exhibition of French artists has opened in Moscow, in which the works of our contemporaries are presented alongside the works of painters of past centuries. The exhibition is a joint French-Russian project, its exhibits are part of the collection from the Museum of Art located in the city of Nantes (France).

At the exhibition, the curators embodied a unique idea - to help visitors to the exhibition to see the difference between works written in the same genres, but scattered over centuries. Near each other there is a painting written by Jean-Baptiste-Greuze, who worked in the eighteenth century, and the work of a contemporary is the painting “The Little King” by Rosemary Trockel.

A look at the paintings shows how the views on the portrait genre have changed over two hundred years. Modern artists are increasingly using allegories in portraits of people. If in Greese’s picture the eyes of the young Earl of Saint-Maurice seem to be watching the visitors of the exhibition, bewitching them, then the Little King’s empty eye sockets do not express any emotions.

The paintings of landscape painters are presented in the same way. More than three dozen exhibited paintings trace changes in the landscape genre, from the 16th century to the present day. The habitat of people is changing, and with it the style of landscapes in the image of painters is changing. In modern paintings, you can see a lot of technical details inherent in our time.

The first city to host an exhibition in Russia was Nizhny Novgorod. The exposition from the French museum stayed there for two months. The organizers of the exhibition were satisfied with the reaction of the public. Now this project, which is located immediately on two museum sites, will be seen by residents of the capital. Guests will find expositions located in the NCCA and MMOMA.

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