Déjà Vu? Revealing Repetition in French Masterpieces
Time: 11:00 AM | 05:00 PM
On Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday
Date: 10/07/07 - 01/01/08
View exhibition image gallery
Read the recent review of Déjà Vu? in the Washington Post.
Why do painters repeat themselves? What did repetition mean within the Academic tradition? How do the motivations for repetition change in the modern period? This exhibition will explore these questions through more than 60 paintings, drawings, prints, photographs, and bronze sculptures by David, Ingres, Delacroix, Monet, Degas, Cezanne, Matisse, and others. The motivations for painting in series will be distinguished from earlier traditions in which the concept of repetition was uncomplicated by modern anxieties over originality. Special conservation analysis will investigate questions of materials and techniques, determine the sequence of replicas if unknown, and address lingering questions of attribution when possible.
Preview the Audio Tour
Preview Part of the Exhibition's Video Installation
Déjà Vu? Revealing Repetition in French Masterpieces is on view through January 1, 2008 and has been organized by the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, in association with the Phoenix Art Museum. The exhibition is supported by an indemnity from the Federal Council on the Arts and the Humanities. Déjà Vu? Revealing Repetition in French Masterpieces is presented by The PNC Foundation with lead support from four anonymous donors. Contributing sponsors are Canusa Corporation, Stanley Mazaroff and Nancy Dorman, and Sotheby’s.
Image details, left to right:
Studio of Jacques-Louis David, The Death of Marat (Marat assassiné), 1793–94, oil on canvas, 162 x 129 cm, Paris, Musée du Louvre, Département des Peintures, legs du baron Jeanin, descendant de l'artiste, 1945 (R.F.1945–2)
Jacques-Louis David, and Studio, The Death of Marat (La mort de Marat), ca. 1794, oil on canvas, 111.3 x 85.6 cm, Reims, Musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Reims, don Paul David, 1879, (879.8)
Studio of Jacques-Louis David, The Death of Marat (La mort de Marat), 1793, oil on canvas, 92 x 73 cm, Dijon, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon (879.8)
Claude Monet, Grainstack (Snow Effect), 1891, oil on canvas. 65.4 x 92.4 cm, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Gift of Miss Aimée and Miss Rosamond Lamb in memory of Mr. and Mrs. Horatio Appleton Lamb, 1970 (1970.253)
Claude Monet, Stacks of Wheat (Sunset, Snow Effect), 1890–91, oil on canvas, 65.3 x 100.4 cm, The Art Institute of Chicago, Potter Palmer Collection (1922.431)
Claude Monet, Grainstack in Winter, Misty Weather, 1891, oil on canvas, 65 x 92 cm, Private Collection, courtesy of Ivor Braka
Paul Cézanne, Male Bathers, ca. 1895, oil on canvas, 20.6 x 30.8 cm, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Gift of Louise and Walter Arensberg, 1950 (1950-134-34)
Paul Cézanne, Bathers, 1890–92, oil on canvas, 54.3 x 66 cm, Saint Louis Art Museum, Funds given by Mrs. Mark C. Steinberg (2:1956)
Paul Cézanne, The Bathers (Les Baigneurs), 1898–1900, oil on canvas, 27 x 46 cm, The Baltimore Museum of Art: The Cone Collection, formed by Dr. Claribel Cone and Miss Etta Cone of Baltimore, Maryland (BMA 950.195)
