MONET IN VÉTHEUIL: SEASONS OF A LIFE
In spring 2024, the Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille is collaborating with the Musée d'Orsay to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Impressionism, focusing on Claude Monet, the movement's founding figure.
The Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille owns two paintings by Claude Monet representing the village of Vétheuil, both from the Masson donation of the 1970s: “La Débâcle”, painted in the early weeks of 1880, and “Vétheuil, le matin”, painted twenty years later. The village of Vétheuil occupies a singular place in Monet's life and work.
By bringing together works from the Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille with four prestigious loans from the Musée d'Orsay on the same subject, this exhibition will evoke both the rhythm of the seasons as well as two stylistic periods of the artist.
This exceptional group of 6 works, brought together for the first time in Lille, will reflect for the public two key moments in Claude Monet's life, one difficult and the other more prosperous.
The exhibition will be accompanied by an immersive experience in the heart of the museum's atrium, offering a chance to catch your breath and extend the visit with a guided meditation to explore, in full awareness, a landscape from the collections of the Palais des Beaux-Arts.
ECHOING THE EXHIBITION: JOAN MITCHELL IN VETHEUIL
A major figure in post-war painting, Joan Mitchell is one of the greatest American painters of the 20th century. She settled in France in 1968, in Vétheuil, where she bought a property on Claude Monet Street, overlooking the land where he lived. Three monumental works by Joan Mitchell are combined to reveal intense gestures, inspired by Monet’s work in Vétheuil.
This pictorial universe, with its powerful chromaticism, suggests trees’ verticality, the ploughed land, the meadows we have travelled through, the sky’s immateriality, and bears the imprint of the sensations we experience every day when we come face to face with the landscapes of Vétheuil.
SLOW DOWN, CONTEMPLATE, MEDITATE
In the heart of the atrium, the Palais des Beaux-Arts invites you to take a break and discover one of its works: "Les vapeurs du soir", by Antoine Chintreuil. Accompanied by a guided meditation and a soundscape specially created for this experience, immerse yourself in the painting to explore every detail, texture, emotion.
Like a breath of fresh air in the middle of the visit, this space supports the museum's approach to well-being, which has been promoting links between culture and health for over 10 years.
Entrance fee included in the museum ticket.
RAPHAEL EXPERIENCE
October 18th, 2024, to February 17th, 2025
Exceptionally, the Palais des Beaux-Arts is bringing out of its storage rooms a collection of drawings by Raphael (1483-1520) who, along with Leonardo da Vinci, (1452-1519) and Michelangelo (1475-1564), forms the mythical trio of the Italian Renaissance.
Through this priceless treasure, the museum invites people to discover the extraordinary destiny of the “Prince des artistes” (prince of artists) from his apprenticeship to his fame, through his career in Perugia, Florence and Rome.
From drawings to paintings, illustrated thanks to prestigious loans from the Louvre and the Musée d'Orsay and as well as from major foreign museums, the Raphael Experience is a highly interactive and immersive exhibition that combines original works, reconstructions and digital tools to dive into the artist's creative process.
Raphael's art will also be put into perspective through major artists, from Rubens to Kehinde Wiley as well as from Degas to Dali.
Exhibition co-produced with RMN-GP
