From Neo-Classicism to Impressionism. 19th-Century French Painting and Sculpture from the Hermitage Collection

Virtual Visit

The collection of French painting from the first half and middle of the 19th century is one of the most interesting in the Hermitage. It spans a period from the Neo-Classicism of the school of Jacques-Louis David that emerged at the end of the 18th century to the salon-academic art of the second half of the 19th century, which existed in parallel with Impressionism. At the present time, the collection numbers 500 pictures, 38 of which will be on display in Vyborg. Presented along with the paintings are 36 works of sculpture in bronze, marble and terracotta. They provide the opportunity to appreciate the diversity of the Hermitage collection and acquaint visitors with the main styles, tendencies and genres of French 19th-century sculpture.

The display is arranged from the Age of Enlightenment through to the second half of the 19th century and incorporates four thematic sections. The exhibition stands out for the range of genres (history, genre and animal painting, portraiture and landscape) and tendencies represented. Visitors will be able to see how various subjects were presented in the eras of Neo-Classicism, Romanticism, Realism and Impressionism.

The earliest works featured in the exhibition are paintings made in the Age of Enlightenment and the period of the French Revolution in 1789–99. They include portraits of Enlighteners, the famous philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the naturalist Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon. Both works were created in 1790, in the studio of the great painter Jacques-Louis David.

One of the most unusual paintings is an Allegory of the French Revolution (circa 1795) that is attributed to Nicolas-Antoine Taunay. The numerous personages depicted in it include Marat and Robespierre, with whom the bloody events of the 1790s Reign of Terror are associated.

Revolutionary and military subjects give way to romantic ones. A considerable part of this section comprises paintings inspired by the works of Samuel Richardson, Matthew Gregory Lewis and Walter Scott. French painting of the Romantic era is marked by an interest in English literature, especially Scott’s novels. Mourning a Young Fisherman by Ary Scheffer (inspired by Scott’s The Antiquary) was exhibited at the 1824 Salon, which also included other important works by Romantic artists. The literary theme is also reflected in the sculptural portraits of William Shakespeare and John Milton created by Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse.

In the section devoted to the art of the second half of the 19th century, Realist and Impressionist canvases, including two paintings by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, appear alongside sculptures by Auguste Rodin. The oeuvre of that celebrated sculptor cannot be made to fit into the frame of any one style or tendency – Realism, Impressionism or Expressionism. It brought the 19th century to a close and opened up new horizons for art in the era that followed.

The exhibition curators are Alexander Alexeyevich Babin, Candidate of Art Studies, leading researcher in the State Hermitage’s Department of Western European Fine Art, and Yelena Ivanovna Karcheva, Candidate of Art Studies, senior researcher in the same department.

A scholarly illustrated catalogue in Russian – Ot neoklassitsizma do impressionizma. Frantsuzskaia zhivopis’ i skul’ptura XIX veka iz sobraniia Ermitazha (State Hermitage Publishing House) has been brought out for the exhibition. The introductory texts are by Alexander Babin and Yelena Karcheva.