From March 14, 2026
to March 19, 2026

The transition from the nineteenth to the twentieth century is marked by profound pictorial upheavals. The emergence of modernity takes place in France, but not solely in Paris.
Beyond the capital, regional territories become remarkable fields of experimentation—true pictorial laboratories. The South, foremost among them, attracts colourists drawn to the challenge of its dazzling light. Brittany and Normandy likewise emerge as gathering points for artists seeking to reinvent pictorial language. There is no regionalism at work here, but rather singular regions offering artists specific conditions conducive to the development of their research. What emerges is a complex field, shaped by continuities, variations and gradual shifts, leading us toward the contemporary period.

Running through the selection are certain shared pictorial preoccupations. These recurring motifs reveal, through their persistence and convergence, not only a formal pretext—driving the evolution of pictorial technique—but also a reflective process, at times even a social questioning, on the part of the artists.

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the painters of modernity paradoxically dream of Nature, of a rediscovered Eden. Heirs to the industrial age, they continue to question whether humankind is truly made for noisy cities, unchecked urban expansion and the mechanisation of life. They set out in search of a fantasised Arcadia, inherited from classical antiquity, and explore this theme through pictorial means that reveal them as artists ahead of their time.

A previous generation had already found, in the disorientation of the Orient, certain answers to questions of a similar nature. For these artists, as for those represented in this selection, the depiction of the female figure is inseparable from such reflections. In all its complexity, the figure of woman—through its many facets—becomes a support for experimentation and inquiry.

Landscape, evidently, is not an end in itself; it is its representation that is at stake. Following the atmospheric sensation conveyed by Impressionist technique, the chapter of Divisionism—with its variations—opens in the wake of Seurat and Signac. With the young Fauves, the potential dead end of excessive systematisation is fortunately avoided. Yet the rapid succession of these movements does not always faithfully reflect reality. Progress occurs less through rupture than through a series of successive shifts in perception, as generations follow one another, each contributing its own stone to the edifice.

Picasso clearly brings to light the nature of the fidelity we owe to the masters of the past. By summoning a founding motif of modernity and subjecting it to a process of deconstruction and reinvention, he lays the cards on the table: whether consciously or not, dialogue between creation and the ghosts of the past is constant. In this light, Bernard Buffet embodies, for us, the persistence of a figurative tradition sustained by a powerful visual language.

We now inhabit a twenty-first century that has absorbed industrial modernity and opened the way to the digital era. This revolution has already profoundly transformed our ways of living and perceiving the world. In many respects, the questions raised by artists at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries resonate with those confronting today’s creators. While the former interrogated industrial modernity, their heirs grapple with the digital age, the proliferation of images, technological mediation and the emergence of artificial intelligence. In both cases, the challenge remains the same: to preserve, in the face of profound transformations in ways of life and perception, a space for critical reflection in which art continues to play an essential role.