Déjà Vu? Revealing Repetition in French Masterpieces

last updated 8 January 2015

Déjà Vu? Revealing Repetition in French Masterpieces

Walters Art Museum, Baltimore Through Jan. 1, 2008

This “ambitious new exhibition” may cause you to do a double take, said Blake Gopnik in The Washington Post. Déjà Vu? brings together, often for the first time, duplicate versions of dozens of French paintings, from Ingres’ genre scenes and Monet’s haystacks to 20th-century Matisses. Before photography, artists often painted copies of their own works that were nearly identical to the originals, usually for display to potential clients or dealers. For Monet and the impressionists, the variant versions were themselves meant to be works of art. “You weren’t supposed to notice how impressively alike Monet’s Haystacks were. You were supposed to note their crucial differences,” how colors and paint strokes combined to render different seasons and times of day. If you think looking at the same few images side by side will be boring, think again. “Underneath its high scholarly trappings,” said Glenn McNatt in the Baltimore Sun, “this is really a show about learning how to look at art closely.” For instance, the Walters has borrowed several variants of a work in its permanent collection, Jean-Léon Gérôme’s Duel After the Masquerade. In all of them, a man in Native American garb has just slain a man dressed as a clown. “In the first version, the departing victor seems to be accepting hearty congratulations from his companion for surviving the duel.” In later ones he turns aside, ashamed. The juxtaposition of the paintings makes you suddenly aware of each such decision the painter made. Déjà Vu? will teach you a thing or two about French painting. But “what’s important about this show is that it ever so subtly coaxes you to use your eyes to really look at what’s in front of you.”