After a winter like this, who couldn’t dream of Paris in the springtime? Imagine entering the Tuileries Garden through the Louvre’s courtyard to experience 400 years of tradition and artistic vision. Parisians lounge on benches beside reflecting pools. Rodin’s sculptures grace pathways. Close cropped bushes reflect the meticulous work of experienced gardeners. From various angles, one can observe carefully designed vistas of flower beds, woods, lawns and artwork.
All of us can fulfill this dream with a visit to the major international exhibition, The Art of the Louvre’s Tuileries Garden, at the Toledo Museum of Art’s Canaday Gallery and Libbey Court from Thursday, February 13 to Sunday, May 11. Organized by the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, the Portland Art Museum in Oregon and the TMA—in cooperation with Musee du Louvre—this exhibition will present over 100 works of art related to the Tuileries Garden and the Palace of the Tuileries.
Escape to the garden
While waiting for the harsh winter to fade, museum visitors can view works never before shown in the US, including paintings by Impressionists, large-scale sculptures created by artists such as Antoine Coysevox and Aristide Maillol, and photographs of the garden’s sights. Architectural models will further aid dreamers, who can imagine themselves in the reverie of Parisian city life.
Ever since Andre Le Notre, perhaps the greatest landscape architect in European history, expanded the garden during the 17th century, it has been a symbol of sublime beauty and French culture. And for four centuries it has offered an escape from everyday reality and a vehicle for inspiration.
Among the garden’s celebrity fans were painter Camille Pissarro and photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson. Such royals as Marie Antoinette, Napoleon Bonaparte, and Louis XIV (the “Sun King”), lived in a magnificent Tuileries palace that no longer stands—it was destroyed in an 1871 uprising of revolutionaries who considered its unique architecture and priceless art symbols of decadence. Today, however, the garden is enjoyed annually by a diverse crowd of over 10 million local and international visitors, who are free to wander its 63 acres and appreciate its atmosphere of romantic beauty. An important center of Parisian life, the garden is a haven for lovers, loafers, walkers and delighted children.
In presenting the exhibit, TMA Director Brian Kennedy emphasizes how museum visitors can see “works of art they would otherwise have to travel to Paris to view. It will bring a bit of the magic of the Tuileries to Toledo.” And he might have added, it’s a potential cure for the winter blues.
The TMA exhibit of The Art of the Louvre’s Tuileries Garden is a major showing made possible by The Andersons, Brooks Insurance and Taylor Cadillac. It is also supported by a National Endowment for the Arts grant through the Ohio Arts Council.
$8.50 for adults and $5.50 for seniors.
Runs through Sunday, May 11. Toledo Museum of Art, 2445 Monroe St. 419-255-8000.
toledomuseum.org
