Cycle 5 - Painting and Sculpture: Rivals or Close Allies? 19th–20th Centuries

In his *Treatise on Painting*, Leonardo da Vinci offers a comparative description of the “sculptor-laborer,” whose home is dirty and dusty, and the “gentleman painter,” who surrounds himself with music or poetic readings. Thus a narrative emerges that declares painting the victor over sculpture. But some voices, such as those of Cellini and Michelangelo, oppose this hierarchy. The debate has persisted over the centuries and remained a fruitful one in the 19th and 20th centuries.

The two arts, taught in the same fine arts schools, sometimes play on their similarities and differences. They are called upon to collaborate on major official decorative projects in palaces or city halls. But is one more avant-garde than the other? It is interesting to consider “multidisciplinary” artists who practice both arts, as well as works that reflect the mutual interest each art form shows in the other. That is, until modernity began to challenge the boundaries between these two canonically distinct arts. It was then that the two arts converged, opening the door to radical innovations.

By Claire Barbillon, university professor and director of the École du Louvre

Session Details

• March 22, 2027, from 2:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.: The Art of Illusion: Grisaille, Trompe-l’œil, and Very Shallow Reliefs in the Early 19th Century.
• April 5, 2027, from 2:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.: Romantic Advances in Painting, Neoclassical Resistance in Sculpture
• April 12, 2027, from 2:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.: Painters-sculptors or sculptors-painters (1): Daumier, Carpeaux, Gérôme, Degas, Gauguin.
• May 3, 2027, from 2:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.: Painters-sculptors or sculptors-painters (2): Matisse, Picasso, Modigliani.
• May 10, 2027, from 2:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.: Sculpture in Painting: A Game of References or a Challenge to Modernity?