The Great Masters of Painting (2017 - 2017)

Painter, architect, doctor, inventor ahead of his time, Leonardo da Vinci continues to fascinate us today. Perceived as a superior being, an intimidating figure, visionary and complex, he was however much more vulnerable than one might expect. He died relatively young, filled with bitterness and melancholy, unable to find any interest in the world and its passions, he remains one of the most extraordinary minds of all time. Yet the man behind the Saturnian mask was plagued by constant worry and doubt...

Monet is recognized as one of the creators of Impressionism, the leader of the movement, the most convinced and the most consistent of its members. He first excelled as a caricaturist, then at 18 years old met his mentor: the painter Eugène Boudin, who encouraged him to paint outdoors. The critics greeted his debut at the 1865 Salon, but the following World's Fairs and exhibitions systematically refused his works. In 1890, he bought his house in Giverny where he would spend nearly forty-three years, producing some of his most famous works and the famous Water Lilies series. He gradually lost his sight, but never stopped painting.

French painter, Eugène Delacroix is a major figure of romanticism in painting. Although he found support from the press, art magazines and certain critics of the time (Théophile Gautier or Charles Baudelaire), his genius was only belatedly recognized by official painting circles. He would not triumph until 1855 at the Universal Exhibition where he became the one who knew how to go beyond classical training to renew painting. He was not elected to the Institut de France until January 10, 1857, after seven unsuccessful candidates, Ingres always opposing his election.

Born into a bourgeois family in Aix-en-Provence, Paul Cézanne moved to Paris where he became a prominent member of the Impressionist movement.

If Degas, painter, engraver, sculptor, photographer and collector, is attached to the great movement of the Impressionists, he only finds his place in it in the name of the freedom to paint advocated by the group. Although he was the most ardent instigator of the Impressionist exhibitions (1874-1886), he was never able to conform either to this movement or to others, thus choosing his own artistic path. He was one of the first artists to devote himself to scenes of contemporary life, thus escaping the discomfort created by the conformism of the time, freeing his works from the social and narrative obligations of his time

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During his adolescence, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec suddenly stopped growing because of a bone disease and two falls from a horse that left him deformed. He then began to paint and draw and moved to Paris in 1882 to perfect his knowledge of art. He immersed himself in impressionism and became friends with Edgar Degas and Vincent Van Gogh. He frequented cabarets, notably the Moulin Rouge, and immortalized them in his paintings as well as on his posters (Moulin rouge, La Goulue, 1891). He also painted theaters, cafés-concerts and brothels (Au salon de la rue des Moulins, 1894) whose characters he captured on the spot. He became an emblematic figure of Parisian nights. Alcoholism and syphilis put an end to his fragile health in 1901, when he became paralyzed. He died on September 9 of the same year.

A full member of the Impressionist group, Pierre Auguste Renoir evolved in the 1880s towards a more realistic style under the influence of Raphael.