Topical news in Paris: Musée d'Orsay and Musée du Louvre

There is nowhere better than the Musée d’Orsay to show impressionist works ! The current exhibition creates a dialogue between one of the most illustrious impressionists, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and his son, Jean Renoir, between the paintings of the former and the films of the latter. It explores the relationship between the reputed painter and the film-maker, who posed for his father but never filmed him: crossovers, common influences and the relationship with the artistic world. It is clear that the brilliant painter left creativity in legacy to his son: Jean, who started with an interest in ceramics before turning to cinema, said: "I have spent my life trying to determine my father's influence on me."

Among the disturbing links between their two artistic approaches, there is their relation to Andrée Heuschling : she was Auguste's model from 1915 and, in 1920, she married Jean who gave her the part of Nana -Zola's heroine- in one of his films. The nineteenth century is also extremely present in Jean Renoir’s filmic work, as if he loved to revisit and revive the reality in which his father had lived and created. This is particularly noticeable with the production of Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe -a favorite theme of the Impressionists- that he shot outdoors in the family estate. To our greatest pleasure, the multidisciplinary approach of the exhibition, with paintings, film extracts, photographs, costumes, and posters,... traces the connections between both their works, between Le Bal du Moulin de la Galette by Auguste and Le Dejeuner sur l’herbe by Jean, between les Baigneuses by the father and Whirlpool of Fate by the son. It also shows that Jean Renoir was not satisfied being simply nostalgic of his father’s work. He managed to free himself from his origins and achieve something universal creation paving the way to modern cinema.

A few steps away, after crossing the Seine, at the Musée du Louvre, you may visit an exhibition dedicated to a mythical private collection, the Campana collection. The incredible history behind it covers a time when Italy was considered the Mecca of Art. By collecting more than ten thousand works by the Etruscans, the Romans, from Magna Graecia, the Primitifs, or the Renaissance periods, the Marquis Giampietro Campana, who was the director of the Mont de Piété in Rome mid 19th century, dreamt of building himself a grand museum of the history of Italian Art. When this collection was divided in 1861, Napoleon III France acquired the largest share, including the famous Etruscan couple and the Battle of San Romano by Paolo Uccello. The collection is now a fabulous exhibition at the Musée du Louvre with documentary aspects and discoveries to be made !