First outdoor paintings to see at the Fondation Custodia

At the end of the 18th century, many painters had grown tired of the artificial academic style of painting based on composing, working on and recreating nature indoors. They were able to go outside, experience nature and scenery in reality and understand how light and shade affected them. The exhibition at the Fondation Custodia, next to the Hôtel d’Orsay, is focused on this type of painting: five hundred sketches and paintings made between 1780 and 1870 by European painters are grouped per subject (trees, riverbanks, skies and atmospheric effects, the Italian countryside, the bay of Naples, volcanic eruptions and many more). The themes covered reflect the Age of Enlightenment's openness and need for truth, paving the way for Impressionism by representing the rapidity of flowing water, cloud movement and light filtering through the leaves on trees.

English painters Constable and Turner are obviously present with bright woodlands and stormy sunsets. Les arbres devant une vallée by Simon Denis, bathed in a practically mystical light, leaves a lasting impression. Christian E.B. Morgenstern's Traun River Waterfall bubbles with truth via the froth movement and rising mist; it echoes Baron François Gérard's L’étude de vagues se brisant sur un rocher. Camille Corot's L’ile de San Bartolomeo seems to prefigure Cézanne, while Degas goes back to the soothing mother-of-pearl Neapolitan sky in his view of Capodimonte. All the works were fresher and more spontaneous than many of the larger paintings the artists worked on.

The Palais Bourbon is close to the exhibition exit and classic French cuisine lovers can enjoy a meal at the Café des Ministères, as many of the neighbouring deputies do. Chef Jean Sévégnès, from the south-west of France, offers top quality poultry or veal sweetbreads vol-au-vents with spinach and truffles in winter and morel mushrooms and green asparagus in spring, plus a wine list that will not disappoint! 

Sur le motif : peindre en plein air
Until April 3, 2022
Fondation Custodia

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