Musée de Cluny in Paris is the French Musée National du Moyen Age and has an impressive permanent collection as well as holding frequent temporary exhibitions. The current exhibition displays the range of artistic production from the reign of Charles VII, with paintings, sculptures, stained glass, tapestries and illuminated manuscripts. It also has a section devoted to the works of Jean Fouquet, one of the most renowned French artists of the fifteenth century.

Charles II came to the throne in 1422, a time of political instability, with the Hundred Years War continuing and the Armagnacs, supporters of the House of Valois, and the Burgundians fighting a civil war. However, by the end of his reign in 1461, the Hundred Years War was over (with the aid of Jeanne d’Arc), as were English claims to the French throne. The period also saw a change in artistic production, with a new style, influenced by both Flemish realism (‘ars nova’) and the Italian Renaissance, taking over from International Gothic.

Jean Fouquet ‘Charles VII’ (c.1450 – 55)

‘Canopy for throne of Charles VII’ (1450)

Maître de Dreux-Budé (André d’Ypres) ‘Crucifixion triptych’ central panel (c.1450)

‘Crucifixion triptych’ side panels. ‘Kiss of Judas’ (left) ‘Resurrection’ (right)

Berthélemy d’Eyck ‘Altarpiece of the Annunciation’ (1443 – 44)

‘Pietà de Tarascon’ (Provence, fifteenth century)

‘Chess Players’ (fifteenth century)

Master of Rohan ‘Grandes Heures de Rohan (1430 – 35)

Enguerrand Quarton ‘Missal of Jean des Martins’ (1466)

It was also an opportunity to see some of the remarkable exhibits that make up the museum’s permanent collection.

‘À mon seul désir’ (The Lady and the Unicorn tapestry) (c.1500)

‘Heads of Kings of Judah’ (west façade Notre-Dame cathedral) (thirteenth century)

Altar frontal from Basel Cathedral (first half eleventh century)

‘Virgin and Child’ (Paris,1240 – 50)

Angelo di Nalduccio, attrib. ‘Bust Reliquary of Saint Mabilia’ (c.1370 – 80)

‘Reliquary of Saint Thomas Becket’ (c.1190 – 1200)

On 15 April 1874, the first Impressionist exhibition opened in Paris, held at the former studio of the photographer Nadal. A group of artists led by Monet, Renoir, Degas, Morisot, Pissarro, Sisley and Cézanne, tired of rejection by the official Salon, decided to hold their own exhibition, free from what they saw as outdated Salon rules.

Later that month, journalist Louis Leroy wrote a mocking sketch in the satirical magazine ‘Le Charivari’ in which he called the paintings on display slapdash and superficial and creating no more than “impressions”, a term he lifted from the title of a painting by Claude Monet entitled ‘Impressions, Sunrise’ – the group had been given their name.

To mark the 150th anniversay of the first exhibition, Musée d’Orsay presented 130 paintings and works on paper from both the Impressionist exhibition and, by way of contrast, paintings from that year’s Salon.

Works from the 1874 Impressionist exhibition

Paul Cézanne’ Une moderne Olympia’ (1873 – 74)

Edgar Degas ‘Répétition d’un ballet sur la scène’ (1874)

Berthe Morisot ‘Le berceau’ (1872)

Claude Monet ‘Coquelicots’ (1873)

Claude Monet ‘Impression, Soleil Levant’ (1873)

Claude Monet ‘Le déjeuner’ (1868 – 69)

Camille Pissarro ‘La Jardin de la Ville Pontoise’ (1874)

Pierre-Auguste Renoir ‘Danseuse’ (1874)

Pierre-Auguste Renoir ‘La Loge’ (1874)

Alfred Sisley ‘L’automne – Bords de la Seine pres Bougival’ (1873)

Works from the 1874 Salon

Jules Bastien-Lepage ‘Portrait du grand-père de l’artiste’ (1874)

Edouard Dantan ‘Moine sculptant un Christ en bois’ (1874)

Ferdinand Humbert ‘La Vierge, l’Enfant Jésus et saint Jean-Baptiste’ (c.1874)

Edouard Manet ‘Le Chemin de fer’ (1873)

Works from the 1877 Impressionist exhibition

Gustave Caillebotte ‘Peintres en bâtiment.’ (1877)

Claude Monet ‘La Gare Saint-Lazare’ (1877)

Claude Monet ‘Les Dindons’ (1877)

Auguste Renoir ‘Bal du moulin de la Galette’ (1876)

Auguste Renoir ‘La balançoire’ (1876)

The Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France under conductor Mikko Franck have been performing a complete Sibelius symphony cycle on successive evenings at Maison de la Radio, Paris. This evening’s programme brought together the final three: symphonies 5, 6 and 7.

Jean Sibelius

The evening began with Symphony no. 5, possibly Sibelius’s best known. It was commissioned by the Finnish government in honour of the composer’s fiftieth birthday on 8 December 1915, which had been declared a national holiday. He wrote the original score from 1914 to 1915, revising it twice before it reached its final form in 1919.

Written in E-flat major, it is in three movements, each of which evoke the Nordic landscape. Whilst writing the symphony in 1915, Sibelius noted in his diary, “Today at ten to eleven I saw sixteen swans. One of my greatest experiences! Lord God, what beauty! They circled over me for a long time. Disappeared into the solar haze like a gleaming silver ribbon.” This inspired him to write what has become known as the ‘swan theme’ which forms the dramatic climax of the final movement. The orchestra performed it brilliantly under Finnish conductor Mikko Franck (like many other Finnish conductors, a pupil of Jorma Panula) who planned this series of concerts for his final year as the orchestra leader.

Perhaps it was the thrill of the performance of the fifth symphony that led to the sixth seeming slightly lacklustre in comparison. It is of course a much more subdued and less dramatic composition than the fifth with much quieter moments. Even Sibelius himself wrote of the sixth, “Whereas most other modern composers are engaged in manufacturing cocktails of every hue and description, I offer the public pure cold water.” Whilst it was an enjoyable performance, and certainly not ‘cold water’, I would have preferred a little more dynamism.

Mikko Franck et l’Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France

However, with the final piece of the evening, Symphony no. 7, the orchestra were back on fire. Notable for being a single movement symphony, it is one of the composer’s most remarkable achievements. Despite its complexity, it was played with great energy (the trombone theme was especially wonderful) and it provided the perfect ending to the evening and to the entire cycle. Mikko Franck was deservedly called back for numerous ovations.

Jean Sibelius: Symphony no. 5 in E-flat major, opus 82; Symphony no. 6 in D minor, opus 104; Symphony no. 7 in C major, opus 105.

In 1930, Henri Matisse, then aged 61, met Albert Barnes, an American millionaire businessman and modern art collector who had set up the Barnes Foundation in Merion, Pennsylvania (the Foundation has since moved to Philadelphia). Barnes commissioned Matisse to paint a mural for the Foundation building, leaving the artist to decide on the subject.

Matisse chose dance, a subject he had often painted before, and, in 1931, he began work on a triptych which was to fit under three arches. However, he considered his first attempt to be too decorative and abandoned it. Now known as ‘La Danse inachevée’ (‘The Unfinished Dance’), this work is exhibited in the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, as is Matisse’s second attempt, known as ‘La Danse de Paris’. Although this time he completed the project a problem with the dimensions meant that it was unsuitable for its intended location.

Matisse decided to produce a third version and this was finally installed at the Barnes Foundation In April 1933. ‘La Danse inachevée’ was only discovered in Matisse’s studio in Nice, in 1990.

Henri Matisse ‘Danse inachevée’ (1931)

Henri Matisse ‘La Danse de Paris’ (1931 – 33)

Henri Matisse ‘La Danse’ (Barnes Foundation,1933)

The Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris is housed in the Art Deco Palais de Tokyo on Avenue de Président Wilson in the sixteenth arrondissement. As well as Matisse’s two Dance triptychs, its holds extremely impressive permanent collections of Modern and Contemporary paintings and works on paper – a total of 15,000 works from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It is particularly rich in the works of Robert and Sonia Delaunay, Raoul Dufy and Giorgio de Chirico.

The Palais de Tokyo seen from the Seine

Raoul Dufy was commissioned to paint huge frescoes for the curved wall of the entrance to the Pavillon de la Lumière et de l’Électricité at the 1937 International Exposition in Paris. His massive work entitled ‘La Fée Électricité’ (‘The Electricity Fairy’) depicts scientists and inventors involved in the history of electricity and its applications. The fresco was donated to the Musée d’Art Moderne by Électricité de France in 1964.

Raoul Dufy ‘La Fée Electricité’ (1937)

Robert and Sonia Delaunay’s series of large paintings entitled ‘Rhythms’ was created in 1938 to decorate the sculpture gallery at the Salon des Tuileries in Paris.

Robert and Sonia Delaunay ‘Rhythms’ (1938)

Robert Delaunay ‘L’Equipe de Cardiff’ (1912 – 13)

Robert Delaunay ‘Tour Eiffel’ (1926)

Pablo Picasso painted ‘Evocation (L’Enterrement de Casagemas)’ as a tribute to his friend and fellow art student Carlos Casagemas, who had committed suicide in Paris in 1901 after a failed love affair. Picasso was deeply affected by the death of his friend and the painting depicts the ascension of Casagemas’s soul.

Pablo Picasso ‘Evocation (L’Enterrement de Casagemas)’ (c.1901)

Pablo Picasso ‘Le vieux marc’ (c.1914)

Georges Braque ‘Nature morte à la pipe’ (1914)

Natalia Goncharova ‘Femme russe’ (c.1909)

Fernand Léger ‘Les discs’ (1918)

Amedeo Modigliani ‘Femme aux yeux bleus’ (c.1918)

Chaim Soutine ‘Torse au fond bleu’ (c.1928)

Giorgio de Chirico ‘Offerta a Giove (Offrande à Jupiter)’ (1971)