Between politics and devotion

• Thu 20/09/07 - Sun 13/01/08
• Musée Rath| Place Neuve

This important exhibition dedicated to one of the major artists of the Grand Siècle, who has not been the object of a retrospective exhibit since 1952, was conceived and realised by the Geneva Musée d’Art et d’Histoire in collaboration with the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Lille and the Réunion des Musées Nationaux (of France), the co-organisers of the event. This undertaking is part of the Geneva museum’s project of highlighting the importance of its 17th century French paintings, which will be put into perspective on this occasion. The collection is not only an essential element of the Museum’s archives, but also one of its specificities within the panorama of Swiss museums.
Organised in chronological order, the exhibit is based around a significant group of more than sixty canvasses that illustrate the importance and prestige of the artist’s principal commissions, whether they came from royalty (Marie de Médicis, Richelieu, Anne of Austria), the Carmelites, the Carthusians, or the Port-Royal convent. Heir to the Flemish tradition and imbued with a profound spirituality, Champaigne worked in the portrait, religious and landscape genres to create a noble and monumental manner of painting that magisterially reconciles classicism and realism.