The Origins of the World : The Invention of Nature in the 19th Century delves into the interrelation of arts and sciences in the very century in which arose the issues we continue to grapple with today. In many respects, the long nineteenth century that stretched to the outbreak of the First World War was a pivotal moment, essential to understanding our present day.
Set against the backdrop of the Industrial Revolution and the rise of colonial empires, this critical period saw the cataloguing of nature take shape at the same time as modern science, fuelled by the discoveries of countless scientific expeditions, was consolidating its substance. As knowledge progressed in every field, science organized and systematized itself; and in the century of the ordering of the world came the invention of the modern museum, replacing the eclectic cabinet of curiosities.
This was also the era in which the still-porous borders between arts and sciences allowed exchanges and back-and-forths between these two spheres of knowledge. Fed by abounding exploration, the imaginary of science and nature was still very powerful, with each milestone reached in scientific progress prompting a parallel in the arts. This catalogue reveals the close and often little-known ties that connect the development of these spheres. The nineteenth was a century of fruitful interactions, before art and science were definitively separated in the twentieth.
« Chacun est essentiel dans cette longue chaîne qui va du producteur de plante au créateur en passant par le chercheur et le transformateur, mais le parfumeur donne le tempo. »
The second installment of Icons of Modern Art, the major exhibition organized by Fondation Louis Vuitton, brings together more than 170 unparalleled masterpieces from the collection of modern French and Russian art created by the Muscovite brothers Mikhail and Ivan Morozov.
Following the exhibition of the collection of Sergei Shchukin, Fondation Louis Vuitton continues its exploration of the cultural and intellectual world of Russia's collectors and patrons, pioneers of modern art. Presented for the fi rst time outside Russia, the Morozov collection includes iconic works by Manet, Rodin, Monet, Pissarro, Toulouse-Lautrec, Renoir, Sisley, Cézanne, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Bonnard, Denis, Maillol, Matisse, Marquet, Vlaminck, Derain, and Picasso, alongside works of celebrated Russian artists from the turn of the twentieth century, such as Repin, Vrubel, Korovin, Golovin, Serov, Larionov, Goncharova, Malevich, Mashkov, Konchalovsky, Utkin, Saryan, and Konenkov. The unprecedented presentation of work by these artists represents an exceptional opportunity for discovering them anew.
The philanthropic brothers Mikhail Abramovich Morozov (1870-1903) and Ivan Abramovich Morozov (1871-1921) dominated Moscow's cultural life from the end of the nineteenth century until the early twentieth century, along with the Tretyakov, Mamontov, Ryabushinsky, and Shchukin families. Their unconditional support of European and Russian contemporary art was integral to the international recognition of modern French painters.
