Marc Chagall. The Madonna of the Village, 1938-1942.
70 works from the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza travel to China for a major exhibition at the Museum of Art Pudong in Shanghai
The Greats of Six Centuries: Masterpieces from the Museo Nacional Thyssen- Bornemisza will be on display from 22 June to 12 November 2023
Organised in association with the celebrations to mark the 50th anniversary of the start of diplomatic relations between Spain and China
With the support of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Spanish Embassy in China and the Instituto Cervantes.
A selec�on of 70 pain�ngs from the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza will be on display between June and November at the Museum of Art Pudong (MAP) in Shanghai. This is a group of works representa�ve of the diversity of styles, genres and ar�s�c movements which characterise the Museo Thyssen, with a chronological span that extends from the Renaissance to the 20th century and featuring European and American pain�ng, portraits, landscapes, s�ll lifes and other genres by great names in the history of art such as Raphael, Rubens, Canaleto, Courbet, Manet, Van Gogh, Chagall, O’Keeffe....
The exhibi�on is produced by Shanghai Lujiazui Development (Group) Company Limited and co- organised by the Museum of Art Pudong and the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza. It is taking place in the context of the celebra�ons to mark the 50th anniversary of the start of diploma�c rela�ons between the Kingdom of Spain and the People’s Republic of China on the ini�a�ve of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Spanish Embassy in Spain and with the support of the Ins�tuto Cervantes. This is the first �me that such a significant group of works from the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza has le� Spain with the aim of introducing the Chinese public to the richness and variety of both its holdings and of Spain’s cultural heritage, promo�ng knowledge of them abroad and strengthening cultural �es with the People’s Republic of China.
Raphael. Portrait of a Young Man, ca.1518-1519;
Vincent Van Gogh. The Stevedores in Arles, 1888;
Located in the heart of Xiao Lujiazui in Shanghai, the modern Museum of Art Pudong (MAP) was built from September 2017 and opened to the public in July 2021. Designed by Ateliers Jean Nouvel, the MAP is managed by the Lujiazui Group and has the principal mission of promo�ng public educa�on, devising cultural ac�vi�es, organising exhibi�ons and encouraging interna�onal exchange with the aim of becoming a cultural point of reference in Shanghai and a major pla�orm for interna�onal cultural exchange.
A survey of six centuries of Western art
The exhibi�on is organised to present a chronological survey, divided into eight sec�ons which extend from the Renaissance to 20th-century European and American art. The primary focus is on the genres, ar�sts, schools and movements that are par�cularly well represented in the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, such as portraiture and landscape, Dutch and American pain�ng, Impressionism, Expressionism and the early avant-gardes.
Both for the number of pain�ngs and their quality, the genre of portraiture is undoubtedly the most notable within the Thyssen collec�on. This first sec�on features 15th- and 16th-century examples from the Flemish, German and Italian schools by ar�sts such as Rogier van der Weyden, Bernhard Strigel, Lucas Cranach the Elder, Raphael, Correggio and Bronzino, among others.
Bronzino (Agnolo di Cosimo di Mariano). Cosimo de Medicis in Armour,
ca. 1545. Oil on panel, 76,5 x 59 cm
- Baroque pain�ng. Realism and emo�on
The second sec�on presents notable examples of the different genres that became both autonomous and increasingly appreciated from the late 16th century and par�cularly in 17th- century Holland, such as landscape, the s�ll life, interiors and pain�ngs of animals, including works by Ruisdael, Hobbema, Peter de Hooch and Van de Velde III. There are also examples of historical and mythological composi�ons, such as Rubens’s Venus and Cupid and by the French Baroque school.
Peter Paul Rubens. Venus and Cupid, ca. 1606 - 1611.
- The 18th century in Europe. Views, landscapes, portraits and other subjects
In 18th-century Italy the Baroque reached its height with the triumph of the urban view or veduta with Venice as its protagonist and Canaleto as its leading representa�ve. The ar�st’s large-format canvas of The Grand Canal from San Vio, Venice is displayed alongside the work of other Italians such as Longhi and Foschi, leading representa�ves of the French Rococo such as Wateau, Chardin and Vernet and of the English school of portrai�sts such as Reynolds and Zoffany.
Canaletto (Giovanni Antonio Canal). The Grand Canal from San Vio, Venice, ca. 1723 – 1724. Oil on canvas, 140,5 x 204,5 cm
The 19th century in Europe. Realism and French Impressionism
With works by Courbet, Manet and Pissarro, this sec�on shows the evolu�on of pain�ng from the mid-19th century. Landscape became the principal field of ar�s�c experimenta�on as plein air pain�ng and the direct observa�on of mo�fs triumphed, while the experiences of city life and its characters now appear as a pictorial subject. The sec�on concludes with the subjec�ve representa�on of nature achieved by Van Gogh and the decora�ve character of pain�ng exemplified by Bonnard.
Édouard Manet. Horsewoman, Full-Face (L'Amazone), ca. 1882. Oil on canvas, 73 x 52 cm.
- 19th-century American pain�ng
Maurice Prendergast. The Race Track (Piazza Siena, Borghese Gardens, Rome), 1898. Watercolor on paper, 35,6 x 46,6 cm.
The importance of landscape in 19th-century American art is revealed through a group of works that includes examples by the first genera�on of landscape painters. Of European origin or trained there, they adapted the Roman�cism of the sublime to the exuberant nature of the New World with a religious, patrio�c sen�ment. They are followed by the second genera�on, who were closer to the ideals of naturalism, and then, at the end of the century, by painters who reveal the influence of French Impressionism, employing a loose, colourist technique, such as Prendergast and Chase.
- The 20th century in Europe. Expressionism
Influenced by Van Gogh, Munch and Gauguin, the earliest Expressionist groups - the French Fauves and the Germans of Die Brücke and Der Blaue Reiter - rejected the ar�s�c conven�ons of naturalism and Impressionism, championing a new an�-naturalist concep�on of form and colour in the service of expressivity. Ma�sse, Kirchner and Kandinsky are among the leading names represented in this sec�on, which also includes the work of Russian ar�sts such as Larionov and Chagall.
Emil Nolde. Red flowers, 1906. Oil on canvas, 52,4 x 55,8 cm.
- The 20th century in Europe. The Cubist tradi�on
Invented by Picasso and Braque around 1907, Cubism broke with the tradi�onal representa�on of volume and space through an ar�s�c language based on fragmenta�on and simultaneity in order to give rise to a new dimension of the pictorial space. This is evident in a group of works that starts with examples by Braque himself and includes deriva�ons of Cubism by painters such as Léger from France, Feininger from the USA and the Hungarians Bortnyik and Huszár, as well as Italian Futurism.
Fernand Léger. The disc, 1918. Oil on canvas, 65 x 54 cm.
- Post-war European and American art
Abstract Expressionism dominated the American art scene a�er World War II while in Europe a range of Informalist movements prevailed. Both tendencies priori�sed a new concept of pain�ng based on gesture and colour. This is evident
in the works in this sec�on by Georgia O’Keeffe, Nicolas de Staël, Josef Albers and Charles Sheeler, among others. James Rosenquist’s pain�ng illustrates the emergence of Pop Art in the 1960s, with its exalta�on of everyday objects, consumer goods and adver�sements, while works by Andrew Wyeth and Raphael Soyer demonstrate the survival of realism in the second half of the 20th century.
Georgia O'Keeffe. From the plains II, 1954. Oil on canvas, 122 x 183 cm.
