Arts and Crafts

Nature of Art

Updated at May 13, 2008 10:05

The Barbizon School and Nature of Landscape exhibit opens at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum of Washington University from May 2 to July 21. Free and open to the public, the show celebrates a natural form of art, popular in Barbizon France between 1830-1880.

In response to what was perceived as highly superficial city life in the nineteenth century, this form used rustic and pure scenes from nature in which man interacted more holistically with nature. 

The exhibition features almost forty works including drawings, paintings, and prints by prominent contemporary artists of the era and later American and French artists who had been inspired by the school.

Derived mainly from the permanent collection at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, many of the works were acquired as early as 1881, directly following their creations. Some include Julien Dupre’s In Pasture, created in 1882 and purchased by the museum in 1886, and Dwight William Tryon’s Before Sunrise (Morning Twilight, at Daybreak), created in 1906 and purchased in 1910.

From peasants and flocks of animals standing amidst expanding fields to eerie forests, many of the works embrace simplicity and emphasize light and environment.

“It’s beautiful,” Kimberly Singer, museum marketing manager says. “We have a great space for this kind of work, and it’s great to see some of the works from our collection that we haven’t been able to bring out in a long time that have been restored specifically for this show, and they look fantastic.”

Call 314-935-4523 or visit kemperartmuseum@wustl.edu for more information.

—Lauren Foreman

MissouriLifeLines May 2008

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