So sublime

On the 50th anniversary of the death of Georges Rouault (1871-1958), the Musée national d’art moderne at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris is showing twenty of Rouault’s paintings in a special exhibition.

I was fortunate to see these wonderful paintings last Thursday during a visit to the Centre Pompidou to review their Traces du Sacré exhibition. The selection focusses on the early years of his career (1905–1914), when he made his first paintings of women in front of the mirror, of sad-faced clowns, of sparkling landscapes but more of Rouault's works can also be seen in Traces du Sacré and in a room of unfinished, but still beautiful, works presented to the Museum following Rouault's death.

Rouault said: “The art that I seek would be the most profound, most complete and most moving expression of what one feels, faced with oneself and with ones fellow human beings.”

Another highlight was seeing the large number of works by Marc Chagall in the Museum collection and also his Homage to Apollinaire in Traces du Sacré.

Traces du Sacré is a significant exhibition both sociologically and artistically. Sociologically, because it recognises the re-emergence of religion (or decline of irreligion) in the 21st century and artistically, because it re-tells the story of Modern Art through its non-Christian spiritual influences. A fuller re-telling of that story, one which acknowledges and highlights the very real influences of Christianity on Modern and Contemporary Art still awaits a brave and informed contemporary curator. When that story is finally fully told, Rouault and Chagall will be prominent within it.

Outside the Centre Pompidou at the Serbian Cultural Centre, I also saw an exhibition by Kosta Kulundzic which included a number of contemporary settings for the Stations of the Cross. The Magda Gallery says that:

"Kulundzic concentrates his work on belief and mysticism in our society. Modern society produces myths and heroes. It offers a priceless quantity of idols and images related to the worship. Kosta uses these images to paint very actual mystical characters, altered divinities, who seem closer to us. They come from our everyday life. Working on texts from the Bible, the artist underlines that the same old story always goes on, and nothing really changes."

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Beth Rowley - So Sublime.