The  exhibition Forms of the Ruin has its origins in the book by art historian and archaeologist Alain Schnapp, Une histoire universelle des ruines. Des origines aux Lumières, published in 2020 by Éditions du Seuil, of which it is a variation. The aim of the exhibition is to make this history visible, from a global and comparative perspective, from prehistory to the contemporary period.

Why are some works considered to be memorials while others arouse no interest at all until they are rediscovered ? The Greeks looked at the ruins of Egypt or the remains of the palaces of Assyria with unparalleled enthusiasm. The Romans were mad for about Greek works of art and flocked to the sanctuaries to admire them. The clerics of the Middle Ages regarded Roman remains with both admiration and concern. During the Renaissance, curiosity about the Greco-Roman world and the civilisations of America took hold. During the Enlightenment, this interest spread TO include Asia, Africa and Oceania. This Western scenario differs from that of China, Japan and the Arab-Muslim world, which developed their own uses of ruins.

Drawing on a selection of over 300 works, this exhibition is designed as a journey through ruins, in an ongoing dialogue between civilisations and is centered around four themes: memory and oblivion, the tension between nature and culture, the link between the material and the immaterial, and the confrontation between the present and the future. Its ambition is to question societies through history and at the same time to confront the research of contemporary artists in their desire to interpret the ruins of our industrial societies and imagine their future.

Partie de bateau, a masterpiece by Gustave Caillebotte (1848-1894) and the history of Impressionism, has entered the national collections for the benefit of the Musée d'Orsay. Thanks to an exceptional loan, this national treasure is presented to the public during a French tour. The painting is first visible at the Museum of Fine Arts in Lyon from September 9, then will be visible at the Museum of Fine Arts in Marseille and finally at the Museum of Fine Arts in Nantes.

In 1879 Gustave Caillebotte participated in the fourth exhibition of the Impressionist group with an exceptional set of thirty-five paintings and pastels. This is the most important set of works by Caillebotte exhibited during the artist's lifetime. While urban subjects still figure, as in Vue de Toits [View of Rooftops] (Paris, Musée d'Orsay), most of the paintings represent scenes of water sports, boating and riverside leisure. Partie de bateau is without doubt one of the most emblematic paintings in the series.

By its iconography, its style and its history, Partie de bateau appears as one of the major works of the artist, and even of the impressionist painting of the 1870s. Caillebotte takes up a subject characteristic of naturalism, the emergence of a society of leisure and more particularly here the development of water sports, treated by Thomas Eakins in the United States or, in France, by Claude Monet, Édouard Manet or Pierre-Auguste Renoir. The theme was very attractive to Caillebotte, who himself practiced rowing. This familiarity with the subject led the artist to make the sporting activity and the character of the rower in full effort, seen in "close-up", the main subject of his painting, unlike his elders who made the motif one of several elements of the landscape (Monet, Renoir) or depicted the rowers before or after the action (Manet). Owned by the artist and later by his brother Martial and his heirs, Partie de bateau has remained in France, in the family collections, until today. This painting of exceptional quality is of major patrimonial interest.

The acquisition of Partie de bateau, classified as a national treasure in 2020 by the Ministry of Culture, fills a real gap and enriches the collection with a masterpiece, without equivalent in French public collections. Although it is generally accepted that the Musée d'Orsay's impressionist collection is one of the most important in the world, the French national collections only include thirteen works by Gustave Caillebotte, despite recent additions.  Until now, the Musée d'Orsay had no works by the artist from the period dedicated to the subject of water sports, so emblematic and constitutive of the Impressionist aesthetic. Partie de bateau now joins the Vue de Toits [View of Roofs], also exhibited by the painter at the 1879 Impressionist exhibition. The entry of this work into the national collections thus significantly changes the face of the museum's impressionist collection, which was rich but also largely dependent on the tastes of its major donors (Étienne Moreau-Nélaton, Isaac de Camondo, Antonin Personnaz, etc.), who were not collectors of the artist.

This exhibition devoted to American artist Robert Guinan (1934-2016) is the first to be held in a French museum since an exhibition at the Museum of Grenoble in 1981 and another at the Academy of France in Rome in 2005. Exhibitions of his works at the Albert Loeb Gallery (Paris) between 1973 and 2008 made the artist known in France.

This important selection of nearly eighty paintings and drawings is completed by two series of lithographs, one treating the theme of slavery while the other was inspired by the war poems of English pacifist poet Wilfred Owen. Originally from Watertown, New York, Guinan moved to Chicago in 1959. After having worked in Abstract Expressionism and Pop Art styles during his training, he adopted Realism in the 1970s, essentially using underprivileged members of society as his models. Deeply attached to Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Edgar Degas, the artist is sometimes compared to Edward Hopper.

However, while Hopper depicts anonymous characters, Guinan paints portraits which reveal a sense of brotherhood with his models. In 1977, the museum acquired Portrait of Nelly Breda from the Lyon gallery Le Lutrin. This painting represents the mother of musician Emile Breda, Guinan’s friend and nightlife companion, who introduced him to most of his models. Notably through his bar scenes and portraits, Guinan delivers a traightforward reality of those living on the fringe of the American dream.

Exhibition curators

Sylvie Ramond, Director General of Pôle des musées d’art de Lyon MBA | macLYON. Chief Curator, Director Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon, and Albert and Sonia Loeb.

From the 12th of May to the 10th of September 2023, Lyon Museum of Fine Arts will be presenting a selection of works from Oman National Museum as part of the exhibition ‘Journey to the land of frankincense: Collections from the Oman National Museum'.

Lyon Fine Arts Museum and Oman National Museum have devised two parallel exhibitions which give a glimpse into their respective collections. Oman National Museum in Muscat will display artefacts from Lyon Museum of Fine Arts, in an exhibition entitled ‘Fragrant Journeys’ built around the theme of perfume and incense (17 October 2022 - 7 May 2023). In May, visitors to the Museum of Fine Arts will be invited to discover Oman's historic and artistic heritage.
 
The Sultanate of Oman is quite rightly famed for the beauty of its landscapes with their mountains, sea, and desert, and has a rich history going back thousands of years with traditions that have fortunately been preserved. With around twenty pieces from Antiquity to the present day, including incense-burners, architectural fragments, metal artworks, manuscripts, and jewellery, this exhibition bears witness to Oman's rich culture.
 
The photographs of Ferrante Ferranti provide a highly evocative backdrop, transporting visitors into the heart of this captivating country.

The Sultanate of Oman evokes the home of incense and perfume. Selecting artworks from the Museum of Fine Arts in Lyon to be displayed in the Oman National Museum,, the choice was naturally guided in large part by this enchanting theme.

Since the earliest times, and all civilizations, people have had a special relationship with fragrances, whether they were seen as viatica ensuring a safe passage into the divine world and the afterlife, or appreciated for their protective medicinal value or simply for everyday enjoyment. Within collections of antiquities and decorative arts in the Museum of Fine Arts in Lyon, many works of art are related to incense, perfumes, herbs and spices. These artefacts provide valuable insights into the art and crafts of the time and enable scientists to grasp a major aspect of human societies’ intangible culture.

At the dawn of History, the Ancient Egyptians made extensive use of perfumes, herbs and spices, which were also essential ingredients in the unguents used for mummification, the process of preserving the deceased’s body in readiness for life after death. Because of their volatility, unguents and scented resins also played a major role in communicating with the divine; the Ancient Egyptians offered incense to the gods to secure their protection and bottles of perfume were symbolically placed in the tombs. Perfume was synonymous with the fine art of living and was also widely used in a secular setting for personal grooming and adornment. From Ancient Egypt to the late Roman Empire, the olfactory pleasure derived from the unguent itself was heightened by the beauty of the balsamaria, or small containers, which were made in various shapes and of various materials.

In the West, the use of incense was passed down through history from Antiquity, then spread with Christianity. During the celebration of worship, the act of incensing symbolically establishes a connection with the divine. The smoke rising from the censer represents the prayers of the faithful, ascending to the heavens. Special-purpose liturgical fixtures were created for the celebrants’ use. Moreover, in Christian thinking, sickness was seen as a direct outcome of original sin. In the Middle Ages, when populations were decimated by epidemics of the bubonic plague, foul odours were associated with the universe of Evil. Spreading incense was a way of helping to ward off demons. The East-West trade routes established during the Crusades (1096-1291) opened the door to new scents and spices. A pottery industry sprang up to cater for the needs of apothecaries and merchants selling herbs and spices. In Spain, the Arabs also made a significant contribution to the perfume trade. The Renaissance period was marked by discoveries. Vasco de Gama opened up a sea route to India, returning with incense, ginger, pepper and cloves, while Christopher Columbus brought back vanilla, copal, the cocoa bean and tobacco from the New World... The invention of the printing press paved the way for scientific knowledge about nature and plants to reach a wide audience. Certain treatises dealt with distillation and various essences, and set down recipes for scented waters. Throughout Europe, nature became one of artists’ favourite themes. Over the centuries, it was the source of deep-seated inspiration for the designers of decorative objects.  At the turn of the twentieth century, Art Nouveau in particular saw itself as profoundly “organic”. Close observation of the plant kingdom, from its waving stems to the vein system of leaves, gave birth to the curves and sinuous lines that are the signature of Art Nouveau architecture and object decoration. René Lalique is one of the main exponents of this style. The perfume bottles he designed are an enduring testimony to his fascination with nature, its shapes and scents.

The selection curated from the collections of the Lyon Museum of Fine Arts on the theme of “On the Perfume Roads” has been supplemented by various representative works from the departments. They offer visitors a number of milestones in the universal history of art.

Curators

Geneviève Galliano, Chief Curator, Antiquities Department
Salima Hellal, Chief Curator, Art Objects Department
Lyon Museum of Fine Arts

The genius of Nicolas Poussin still has a few secrets to reveal. Poussin is an artist who has always been thought of as difficult, severe. He is the master of the classical French school, an archetypal painter-philosopher. Few people today know that he also gave himself over to the pure pleasure of painting, portraying some of the most sensual iconography, and that some of his paintings were deemed so erotic that they were defaced, cut up, even destroyed, from the 17th century onwards.

Through the theme of Love, which has rarely been so central to an artist's work, the museum aims to reveal this little-known side of Poussin: sensual, charming, seductive. The artist discovered Ovid before actually travelling to Rome, while under the influence of the audacious poet Giambattista Marino, in what would be a seminal encounter. Poussin then became famous for the Titianesque hedonism of his first Roman paintings, where the way Love takes control of men and gods alike is depicted in scenes taken from Ancient Greco-Roman myths. Love was a recurring theme and a constant source of inspiration for the artist right up until his final masterpieces, pictorial meditations on the wellspring of love's enduring power, as destructive as it is creative. A far cry from the austere image of the painter-philosopher which he showed to the public, the exhibition reveals a sensual, even erotic Poussin; a painter-poet who offers us a profound exploration of the universal and tragic power of love.

This exhibition dedicated to Poussin and love is an opportunity for the museum to give a prominent place to Nicolas Poussin's The Death of Chione, acquired in 2016, as it had been the case in 2008 with the exhibition about The flight to Egypt, a masterpiece acquired in 2007. Nicolas Poussin often stayed in Lyon and developed a large network of friendships and business connections which linked him to the city. This is how The Death of Chione came to be painted for Silvio I Reynon, a silk merchant from Lyon, during a visit to the city in around 1622. The exhibition is divided into five sections/parts, and displays around forty of Poussin's paintings and sketches. Two sections develop more specific focusses around a painting and a series of related sketches; the first around The Death of Chione from the museum’s collection, the second around Apollo in love with Daphne from the Louvre.

Curators

Nicolas Milovanovic, Conservateur en chef du Patrimoine, Département des Peintures, musée du Louvre
Mickaël Szanto, Maître de conférences, Sorbonne Université
Ludmila Virassamynaïken, Conservatrice en chef du Patrimoine, en charge des peintures et sculptures anciennes, musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon

With the exceptional cooperation of the Louvre.

The Club du musée Saint-Pierre is the main sponsor of the exhibition. The Club du musée Saint-Pierre enabled the acquisition of The Death of Chione in 2016, since then exhibited in the museum's collections.

PICASSO / POUSSIN / BACCHANALIA

A thematic exhibition follows  the Poussin and love show, examining the role Poussin's heritage played in the development of Picasso's erotic universe, inspired by Antiquity. Between the 19th and the 25th of August 1944, Picasso made a sketch and painted a gouache based on Nicolas Poussin's The Triumph of Pan (1636). Picasso's The Triumph of Pan from 1944 is part of a particularly fine body of work, full of pieces which explore the theme of pleasure and the excesses of Dionysian revelry.

This show is part of the official programme of the Picasso Celebration 1973–2023.

The exhibition was co-organized with the Picasso Museum – Paris

The museum is celebrating ten years of acquisitions in the form of a dedicated tour of its collections and temporary exhibition rooms. It features antiquities, paintings, sculptures, decorative arts, coins and medals as well as recently acquired collections of drawings and etchings that illustrate the museum’s acquisition policies, which have placed it among the leaders on the national and international scene.

Exhibitions of works by Geneviève Asse and Georges Adilon are also present, thus highlighting the importance of 20th century art in the museum’s collections. Finally, three thematic presentations are exhibited during Ten years of Acquisitions, ten years of Passion – graphic arts, medals and Auguste Morisot.

This exhibition of almost 300 objects, the first ever to be dedicated to the Renaissance in Lyon, presents the largest possible panorama of artistic expression in the city during that period.

A pupil of Auguste Morisot at the École des Beaux-Arts de Lyon, then of Maurice Denis and Marcel-Lenoir, painter, engraver and illustrator Louis Bouquet established himself in the inter-war period as one of the most brilliant French decorators, working with renowned architects such as Michel Roux-Spitz, Paul Tournon and Albert Laprade. His monumental art is illustrated on the most prestigious buildings and sites of the 1930s: the Salon de l'Afrique at the Musée des Colonies (1931) and the Church of the Holy Spirit in Paris (1933), the new town hall in Puteaux (1934), as well as the Grande Poste in Lyon (1937).

If the great decors of the painter established his celebrity and remain the most visible part of his oeuvre, his paintings and engraved work remain fairly unknown. After the donation of Tristan and Isolde (1921) and the deposit of Orpheus charming the animals (1920), granted by the artist's heirs in 2014, the exhibition addresses the resurgence of myths in the artist's work during the first decades of the 20th century.

This exhibition is organised in collaboration with the Print and Graphic arts Museum of Lyon. 

A pupil of Auguste Morisot at the École des Beaux-Arts de Lyon, then of Maurice Denis and Marcel-Lenoir, painter, engraver and illustrator Louis Bouquet established himself in the inter-war period as one of the most brilliant French decorators, working with renowned architects such as Michel Roux-Spitz, Paul Tournon and Albert Laprade. His monumental art is illustrated on the most prestigious buildings and sites of the 1930s: the Salon de l'Afrique at the Musée des Colonies (1931) and the Church of the Holy Spirit in Paris (1933), the new town hall in Puteaux (1934), as well as the Grande Poste in Lyon (1937).

If the great decors of the painter established his celebrity and remain the most visible part of his oeuvre, his paintings and engraved work remain fairly unknown. After the donation of Tristan and Isolde (1921) and the deposit of Orpheus charming the animals (1920), granted by the artist's heirs in 2014, the exhibition addresses the resurgence of myths in the artist's work during the first decades of the 20th century.

This exhibition is organised in collaboration with the Print and Graphic arts Museum of Lyon.