Visit to the Orangerie Museum
My friend and I went for a visit to the Orangerie Museum a few weeks ago. The Museum is known mainly for Monet’s impressionist work, jewel of its permanent collection. Two temporary exhibits were also available on Willem De Kooning, a Dutch-American abstract expressionist, and David Hockney, an influential British painter of the pop art movement.
Museum’s History
The Orangerie Museum is today one of the reknown art galleries in Paris, located on the outskirts of the Tuileries gardens. It was originally an “orangerie”, built in 1852 under Napoleon III in a record of fourth months by the architect Firmin Bourgeois.
After the fall of the Second Empire back in 1870, which was followed by the fire of the Tuileries gardens a year later, the Orangerie became the property of the State. Up until 1922, it still protected orange trees and was a place open to various events (contests, banquets, exhibits, concerts). The State affected the building to the Undersecretary of State of the Beaux Arts in 1921 so that it could be used to exhibit living artists. Georges Clemenceau suggested that be installed at the Orangerie Claude Monet’s Water Lilies, which were still being painted at the time. These were officially donated to the State in 1922. Since the 1920s, the museum has undergone a set of renovations, acquired Jean Walter and Paul Guillaume’s art collection which includes masterpieces from some of the greatest modern artists (such as Renoir, Picasso, Cézanne…), and continuously presented temporary exhibits of various kinds.
Monet’s Water Lilies & Their Installation
Monet’s Water Lilies are the highlight of the Orangerie Museum. And yet, few seem to be aware of the artist’s involvement in their installation. He was indeed quite dedicated to the architectural project, working with the architect Camille Lefèvre. The Water Lilies are a set of eight panels (one of them is featured here), each 2m (about 5.6 ft) high and 91m (about 298.6 ft) long altogether. These were equally split and placed in two oval rooms representing an infinity sign. They are oriented East-West, following the sun’s route and aligned with the axis going from the Arc de Triomphe all the way to the Louvre. Once the visitor enters the room, they are separated from the external world. The Water Lilies bathing in natural light provide a sense of peace and a place of meditation. And that’s exactly what kind of atmosphere Monet wanted to create.
Chaïm Soutine / Willem De Kooning, Painting Embodied
One of the temporary exhibits focused on Willem De Kooning and his relationship with Chaïm Soutine, a Russian painter of the School of Paris whose work had an impact on his pictorial vision.
De Kooning, originally from Rotterdam, made his way to the United States in 1926 by hopping off a ship which was on its way to Latin America, while docked in one of the ports in Virginia. He first worked in New Jersey as a house painter, developing his skills in drawing and craftmanship. He started in artistic career at his next stop in New York. After WWII, De Kooning painted abstract expressionism or “action painting”.
In the early 1950s, he began his pictorial “Woman”, developing a form of expressionism standing between figurative art and abstraction. Chaïm Soutine visibly started to influence his art and artistic process at that moment. De Kooning had already encountered Soutine’s back in the 1930s and had rediscovered his work during a retrospective at the MoMA in New York in 1950 and through the Barnes Foundation Collections in Philadelphia in 1952. What De Kooning found so attractive about Soutine was the tension between two opposites: a search for structure in interaction with an informal tendency in the painting.
As a visitor, you better understand that relationship between De Kooning and Soutine to recognise the meaning of abstract expressionism in the artist’s work. However, the works are hard to grasp. The brush strokes are done as though the artist had done it with haste. The colors are light. The structure can be identified but elements are widely dispersed across the painting. The artworks vary from striking colors to lighter ones. There is an entire world of De Kooning’s that may be hard for those unfamiliar with that specific art movement, to grasp and to appreciate. His art evokes various reactions in its aesthetic evaluation. He is “unclassifiable”.
“David Hockney. A Year in Normandie.”
David Hockney is considered one of the most influential British artists of the 20th century and a contributor to the pop art movement of the 1960s. The man, today 84 years old, seems to have done it all: painter, draftsman, photographer, printmaker and stage designer. His recent temporary exhibit at the Orangerie Museum is conceptually and surprisingly original, considering he is not a digital native. Let me explain.
The artist owns residences in several countries, including one in Normandie from 2019. During his stay in this beautiful region located in northern France, he painted local landscapes using his iPad. When my friend and I entered the exhibit, we found ourselves in front of a massive digitally painted work going all around the room, representing Normandie through the seasons. We immediately recognised these landscapes and highly appreciated not only the familiarity it conveyed, but also the elaborateness of his work, from the forests to the smallest streams. It was surprising to see how rich and attractive a digitally generated painting could be. This is also indicative of the artist’s ability to renew his artwork through recent technology.
This Museum is a place of contemplation which is guaranteed to take you on an artistic journey. You can admire a great range of masterpieces made available both in permanent and temporary exhibits, covering modern art’s highlights. The Museum is also appreciated for the originality and uniqueness of its artists.
“Orangerie” : building, made of great windows and provided with a micro-climate in order to manage the preservation of orange and other fruit trees, especially during winter.
For More Information
Take a look at some of the presented artwork
Bibliography
Castel, O. (2019, September 30). Willem de Kooning, l’inclassable. Art Critique. Retrieved January 21, 2022, from https://www.art-critique.com/2019/10/willem-de-kooning-inclassable/
Chaïm Soutine / willem de kooning, painting embodied. Chaïm Soutine / Willem de Kooning, painting embodied — 2021–09–15 | Musée de l’Orangerie. Retrieved from https://www.musee-orangerie.fr/en/exhibitions/chaim-soutine-willem-de-kooning-painting-embodied-196050
De l’orangerie au Musée. De l’orangerie au musée | Musée de l’Orangerie. Retrieved from https://www.musee-orangerie.fr/fr/collection/de-lorangerie-au-musee
Tate. David Hockney born 1937. Tate. Retrieved from https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/david-hockney-1293
Wikimedia Foundation. (2022, January 13). David Hockney. Wikipedia. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hockney#Other_technology
Willem de Kooning: Moma. The Museum of Modern Art. Retrieved from https://www.moma.org/artists/3213
