Alfred Sisley, Regattas at Molesey, 1874, Olio su tela, 91.5 x 66 cm, Paris, Musée d’Orsay | Foto: © (C) RMN-Grand Palais (Orsay Museum) / Hervé Lewandowski
World – From Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, passionate spectator, to Paul Signac, expert athlete, sport has sometimes left a disruptive mark on the canvas, closely connected with society and the great masters of the brush.
On the occasion of the Paris 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games, the Musée Marmottan Monet will host, from 4 April to 1 Septemberan exhibition entitled Stake! Artisti e sport: 1870-1930.
Mecca of impressionist masterpieces, a treasure chest of an impressive collection, the Parisian museum has always provided, through its jewels, an authentic portrait of society in the second half of the nineteenth century. A context that has gradually rediscovered the pleasure of investing one’s free time in sporting and recreational activities. These new activities occupied an important place in the canvases of the Impressionists, who were increasingly accustomed to bringing natural elements and modernity into dialogue, as evidenced by some masterpieces from the museum’s collections and some of Monet’s drawings.
Louise Abbéma, Pierre Bonnard, Gustave Courbet, Théodore Géricault, Claude Monet, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Pierre Auguste Renoir, Auguste Rodin, Félicien Rops, Paul Signac, Alfred Sisley are just some of the masters who will be called to the exhibition to celebrate the art’s interest in the theme of sport, read through the prism of modernity and social change. Over 160 works, including significant works and documents from private and public collections in Europe, the United States and Japan – from the Peggy Guggenheim in Venice to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, from the Musée national du Sport in Nice to the National Gallery of Art in Washington – they will show how sport changed its social and cultural status during the second half of the nineteenth century.
Claude Monet, The Skaters at Giverny, 1899, Olio su tela, 80 x 60 cm Potsdam, Hasso Plattner Collection © Hasso Planer Collection
It soon began to attract the interest of painters, sculptors and photographers who saw in it the expression of a modernity already explored elsewhere. Lawn tennis, regattas, horse racing and fencing are just some of the activities practiced by sportsmen and gentlemen and from which the Impressionists, from Manet to Sisley, from Degas to Caillebotte, drew inspiration for their paintings. Soon the practice of sport became increasingly accessible even to the working class looking for entertainment. The discovery of sporting activities by a public that had until then been unaccustomed to them became, for example, a source of inspiration for the amusing (and cruel) caricatures of Honoré Daumier and Félicien Rops.
The progressive increase in free time extended the practice of sport, individually or collectively, to the entire European society. The enthusiasm of the public, fueled by spectacular sporting and media events, at the center of photographs, posters and illustrated press, has allowed sport to secure an important role in a context that has consecrated sportsmen and women as new modern heroes.
The first edition of the modern Olympic Games took place in Athens in 1896, while Paris hosted the 1900 and 1924 editions. Modern sport soon also took on a political significance. The vitality and strength of athletes were soon linked to sex and racial issues. The exhibition also explores the changing social codes of sporting environments whose spaces have gradually become the theater to celebrate physical ability.
In addition to following the development of sport in Western societies between the 19th and 20th centuries, the exhibition invites the public to question the identification of artists with the figure of the sportsman. Whether they were passionate spectators like Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec or expert athletes themselves like Paul Signac, these masters undoubtedly identified with the determination and endurance of athletes who sought to surpass themselves. The wrestler, the boxer, the fencer or the sailor thus become the metaphorical self-portrait of those masters who also fought for success and recognition.