Reviews on Inside Out Upside Down Gallery Site
Fauves Hongrois, La Lecon de Matisse, 1904-1914, Musee des beaux arts Dijon, France
This exhibition follows on from the 2006 exhibition Fauves Hongrois. De Paris a Nagybanya at the Gallery National Hungary in Budapest. This exhibition is not an exact replication of the Hungarian exhibition, it is modified for a French audience and perspective of art history. The Musee de beaux arts Dijon has over the last ten years held a number of exhibitions that explore the development of modern art in eastern europe.
The works are divided into a number of small galleries, each representing a form of the works such as Still Life, Family scenes and nudes, female portraites and self portraites, plus drawings and monochromes. The accompanying text is very informative in providing background material to support our appreciation of the works.
I'm left with the impression that the works are a succession of experiments, some times without any particular aim other than to make something new. The influence of Matisse as the teacher becomes clear in the exhibition, even to the extent that Matisse stopped his school because he felt he was producing artists that were to closely aligned and not moving in their own direction.
Not being an avid fan of Fauvism or Matisse I found little to excite me in the works but the shear projection of these artists enthusiasm and vision is a satisfying experience from this very powerful exhibition. To also discover a little more about early 20th century art movements is also of interest to those of us that have yet to comprehend what is so fantastic about these seemingly near pointless concepts.
The exhibition closed on 15 June 2009. I hope to see more of these exhibitions being shown at Dijon in the future.
author: Neil Miley