The Musée d'Orsay Shows the Romantic Side of 'Les Rosbifs"

Written by Elisa Robertsbridge Friday, 11 November 2011 00:29

Paris.- The Musée d'Orsay is proud to host "Beauty, Morals and Voluptuousness in the England of Oscar Wilde", on view at the museum through January 15th 2012. This exhibition was organised by the Victoria & Albert Museum , London, and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco , in collaboration with the Musée d'Orsay and explores the extraordinary 19th century movement that set out to move away from the ugliness and materialism of the time by proposing a new idealisation of art and beauty. Through literature, and through what was, for many, the “dangerous” idea of “art for art’s sake”, painters and poets created a new art form whose sole raison d’être was to be beautiful, an artistic style freed from the established principles of order and Victorian ideas of morality, and which dared simply to give pleasure and to allude to the delights of sensuality.

"Beauty, Morals and Voluptuousness" looks at Aestheticism through the works and ideas of its greatest representatives, including Dante Gabriel Rossetti , Edward Burne-Jones and William Morris ; James McNeill Whistler , Oscar Wilde and Aubrey Beardsley , describing the development of this bold experiment in art and romantic, bohemian lifestyle, from the 1860s to its final, fascinating phase in the last decadent decade of Queen Victoria’s reign. This exhibition brings together an incomparable group of emblematic paintings from this movement, as well as furniture and some highly sophisticated key works from the decorative arts. Among the masterpieces on display will be Whistler’s Nocturnes and portraits, Burne-Jones’ deliciously languid "Laus Veneris" and Lord Leighton ’s famous "Bath of Psyche".

Literature is represented by some of the most important and lavish works of the time. Alongside this blossoming of Aestheticism in painting, there was, in the decorative arts, a pressing need to reform design, and a growing public interest in interior decoration.The majority of leading avant-garde architects and decorators from the “Art Factories”, such as E.W. Godwin, did not work exclusively for rich clients, but also redesigned the homes of the middle classes; thus the notion of “The House Beautiful” became the symbol of a sophisticated lifestyle. Coinciding with an unprecedented period of expansion in the domestic market, the styles favoured by the aesthetic decorators were amongst the very first to be commercially exploited in Great Britain. As well as bringing together many works to be displayed individually, others will be grouped to present a view of the visual world of the Aesthetes: the type of rooms and beautiful objects through which they expressed their tastes and ideals.

At that time, the public was fascinated both by the “palaces of art”, houses created by, among others, Rossetti, Burne-Jones and Morris, Frederic Leighton, Alma-Tadema , as by the extravagant lifestyles of these artists. The leading collectors and patrons, who bought the Aesthetes’ paintings and who furnished their houses in this new style, fell into two distinct groups: one a circle of older aristocrats and intellectuals, the other a new class of ambitious traders and industrialists, selfconfident and, for the most part, self-taught. Each group is well represented in the Aesthetes’ portraits. Through portraits, photographs and fashions of the time, the exhibition presents images of the most brilliant personalities of the movement, including artists, poets and their muses, decorators and creators of beautiful objects, aesthetes and collectors who dedicated their lives to the quest for beauty.



The Musée d'Orsay was originally a railway station, Gare d'Orsay, constructed for the Chemin de Fer de Paris à Orléans and finished in time for the 1900 Exposition Universelle to the design of three architects: Lucien Magne, Émile Bénard and Victor Laloux. It was the terminus for the railways of southwestern France until 1939. By 1939 the station's short platforms had become unsuitable for the longer trains that had come to be used for mainline services. After 1939 it was used for suburban services and part of it became a mailing centre during World War II. It was then used as a set for several films, such as Kafka's The Trial adapted by Orson Welles , and as a haven for the Renaud-Barrault Theatre Company and for auctioneers, while the Hôtel Drouot was being rebuilt. In 1970, permission was granted to demolish the station but Jacques Duhamel, the then Minister for Cultural Affairs, ruled against plans to build a new hotel in its stead. The station was then put on the supplementary list of Historic Monuments and finally listed in 1978. The suggestion to turn the station into a museum came from the Directorate of the Museums of France. The idea was to build a museum which would bridge the gap between the Louvre and the National Museum of Modern Art at the George Pompidou Centre . This plan was accepted by George Pompidou and a study was commissioned in 1974. In 1978, a competition was organized to design the new museum. ACT Architecture, a team of three young architects (Pierre Colboc, Renaud Bardon and Jean-Paul Philippon, were awarded the contract which involved creating 20,000 sq. m. of new floorspace on four floors. The construction work was carried out by Bouygues. In 1981, the Italian architect, Gae Aulenti was chosen to design the interior including the internal arrangement, decoration, furniture and fittings of the museum. Finally in July 1986, the museum was ready to receive it's exhibits. It took 6 months to install the 2000 or so paintings, 600 sculptures and other works. The museum was officially opened in December 1986 by the then president of the Republique François Mitterand. One of the world's most-visited museums, the Musee d'Orsay houses the largest collection of painting, sculpture, and decorative objects produced between 1848-1914, showcasing many of the most remarkable works of the early modern era. Giving visitors a detailed and breathtaking look at the birth of modern painting, sculpture, design, and even photography, the Musee d'Orsay's permanent collection spans from neoclassicism and romanticism to impressionism, expressionism, and art nouveau design. Visit the museum's website at ... http://www.musee-orsay.fr

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