Bringing face-to-face some 140 paintings and sculptures from public and private collections in Europe and America, the exhibition tries to catch the moment between public and private worlds when other rules of portraiture emerge.
Between 1770 and 1830, although very much in vogue in England and America, ...
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Bringing face-to-face some 140 paintings and sculptures from public and private collections in Europe and America, the exhibition tries to catch the moment between public and private worlds when other rules of portraiture emerge.
Between 1770 and 1830, although very much in vogue in England and America, the painted portrait was still a minor genre in the hierarchy established in France by the Academy, placed after history painting. Nonetheless, like sculpted portraits, it flourished in the West in response to a strong public and private demand. Far from staying within the traditional codes dictated by the desire for pomp and prestige, the art of portrait painting enjoyed unprecedented popularity and gradually prevailed as the modern genre par excellence.
After the recent success of monograph exhibitions on the great masters of portraiture, Goya, Houdon, Canova, David or Ingres, this exhibition offers an international panorama of the subject for the first time.
In a broad movement which swept through the Enlightenment, the Revolution, and the Empire as far as Romanticism, portraiture ceased to be an upper class prerogative and spread to other social groups, or at least to the middle-class. It was used to celebrate great men and commemorate their virtues. Pantheons were created in Rome, Paris, London (Westminster, St Paul's Cathedral) or near Ratisbone (Walhalla) and filled with the busts of kings, military heroes and revolutionaries, all in a national spirit.
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