Figures du fou: du Moyen Âge aux Romantiques

Uittreksel

"The exhibition focuses on the multiple figures of the madman, who abound in the visual universe from the 13th to the 16th century. Illuminated manuscripts, printed books and engravings, tapestries, paintings, sculptures, precious or everyday objects: between the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the madman literally invaded all artistic space and imposed himself as a fascinating, disturbing and subversive figure in an era of ruptures, not so far from our own.The exhibition questions this omnipresence of madmen in Western art and culture at the end of the Middle Ages: what do these madmen mean, who seem to play a key role in the transition to modern times? If the madman makes us laugh and brings with him a universe full of buffoonery, erotic, scatological, tragic and violent dimensions also appear. Capable of the best as well as the worst, the madman is in turn the one who entertains, warns, denounces, reverses values, or even overthrows the established order.Bringing together in the space of the completely renovated Hall Napoléon more than three hundred works, loaned by 90 French, European and American institutions, the exhibition offers an exceptional journey through the art of Northern Europe (Flemish, Germanic, Anglo-Saxon and French worlds above all) and highlights a profane, fascinating and much more complex Middle Ages than we think. It also explores the disappearance of the madman when Reason and the Enlightenment triumphed, before a resurgence at the end of the 18th century and throughout the 19th century . The madman then became the figure with which artists identified: "What if the madman was me?" -- provided by publisher