Times of Harmony: The Artist's Paradise in the 19th Century

This is the third exhibition organised by the Musée d'Orsay of works from its collections at the museums of Kobe and Tokyo. The show consists of around two hundred pieces including paintings, sculptures, objets d'art, architectural drawings, drawings and photographs.


The chosen theme brings together some of the Musée d'Orsay artists' preferred subjects: their private lives, their favourite places and the "artist's lifestyle" where studios and models were shared and friends posed for each other. Here also we find the search for the exotic, which these artists found as easily in Brittany and the Midi as in Gauguin's Tahiti. Others, drawn to mystery, creative dreams and the uncanny, turned to the exploration of the inner world and the hidden meaning of things.


The exhibition consists of prestigious works including some of the most important paintings in the museum collections: Whistler's Arrangement in Grey and Black (The Artist's Mother), Manet's Berthe Morisot With a Bouquet of Violets, Monet's The Rocks in Belle-Ile and Vincent's Room in Arles by Van Gogh.