The Georgia Museum of Art presents a French drawings exhibition “The Epic and the Intimate: French Drawings from the John D. Reilly Collection at the Snite Museum of Art” from Aug. 18 to Nov. 3, 2012.
Sleeping Rinaldo, 1686 Charles de la Fosse, French, 1636–1716 black, red and white chalk on blue laid paper 10.5 x 14.625 inches Gift of Mr. John D. Reilly ’63 2004.053.013
Organized by Cheryl K. Snay at the Snite Museum of Art at the University of Notre Dame, this exhibition illustrates the history of French drawing from before the foundation of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in 1648 through the French Revolution of 1789 and its subsequent reforms of the 1800s. It includes works by Simon Vouet, Antoine Watteau, François Boucher, Jean-Honoré Fragonard and Jacques-Louis David.
The drawings on display offer an opportunity to see a range of media, including chalk, colored chalks, ink and crayon; a variety of favored subjects, such as narrative compositions, portraits, landscapes and genre scenes; and types of drawings from figure and drapery studies to quick sketches of initial ideas to complex, multifigured, highly developed compositional works. From the grand “machines” that narrate epic history, such as Michael Dorigny’s “Sacrifice to Juno” or Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson’s “Christ Led from Pilate,” to the celebrations of singular, intimate moments, such as Watteau’s seated figure or Honoré Daumier’s observation of a woman putting bread in an oven, “The Epic and the Intimate” demonstrates an extensive range of both subject and medium. Later artists, including Pierre-Paul Prud’hon, Théodore Rousseau and Edgar Degas signal the transition into the modern era that glorified the individual and the local. – www.georgiamuseum.org