The Sun: Source of Light in Art
The starting point of the exhibition, which is dedicated to the iconography of the sun from antiquity to the present, is Claude Monet's painting Impression, Sunrise from 1872.
Claude Monet’s 1872 painting Impression, Sunrise, which gave Impressionism its name and now marks its 150th year, shows the red disk of the rising sun as the focus of the composition. The painting is the point of departure for the exhibition The Sun: Source of Light in Art, which explores the iconography of the sun from antiquity to the present. As a sign or personification of divine power, a protagonist in mythological narratives, an atmospheric element in landscape imagery, and an intensification of color in modern painting, the sun plays a key role in European art.
Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris
Claude Monet: Impression, Sunrise, 1872, Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris
The exhibition brings together around 130 works — sculptures, paintings, manuscripts, prints, and books — from antiquity to the present, including works by Sonia Delaunay, Otto Dix, Albrecht Dürer, Olafur Eliasson, Caspar David Friedrich, Bernhard Heisig, Joan Miró, Claude Monet, Edvard Munch, Odilon Redon, Peter Paul Rubens, Katharina Sieverding, William Turner and Félix Vallotton.
The over thirty lenders include the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen in Dresden, the Museo nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid, the Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen in Munich, the Musée du Louvre in Paris, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, and the Albertina in Vienna.
An exhibition of the Museum Barberini, Potsdam, and the Musée Marmottan Monet, Paris. In Paris, the exhibition titled Face au soleil. Un astre dans les arts was on view from September 21, 2022 to January 29, 2023.