The "L’art de Nîmes" Exhibition

The exhibition L’Art de Nîmes

The exhibition L’Art de Nîmes will be held in the IESA gallery from March 22 to April 10, 2023, organized by Master 1 Old Master Art students under the guidance of David Brouzet, lead professor at IESA arts&culture.

The exhibition was made possible mainly through the loan of an important private collection never before shown to the public.

The museography will be organized around a plaster model of the Maison Carrée commissioned from the Lorenzi casting workshop specially for the exhibition.

Together, they will offer a general overview of the history and art history of Nîmes from the founding of ancient Nemausus to today.

An archaeological section will attest to the city’s prestigious Gallo-Roman origins. The Middle Ages will be evoked by documents relating to the “Chevaliers des Arènes” (Knights of the Arena), members of Nîmes' nobility at the time.

A rare copy of the Discours historial de l’antique et illustre cité de Nismes by the humanist Poldo d’Albénas will recall the central place the city held, in the Renaissance, in the birth of a national sense of heritage. For more recent periods, the presentation will include paintings (including a canvas by Reynaud Levieux, the “Nîmes Poussin”), drawings and engraved views of the 18^th century, photographs by Denis Rebord, posters and labels from Nîmes palace hotels, where bullfighters, true demigods, and their admirers stayed.

The 19th century will be equally honored with rare photographs by Baldus after the Nîmes painter Numa Boucoiran and a portrait of Saint Jean François Régis by Melchior Doze.

The famous artist Claude Viallat will be represented with an original poster and lithograph in the exhibition.

In the field of decorative arts, pewter objects, goldsmithing, ceramics and joinery furniture will show how the apparently so discreet city was a very active production center in the modern era. Who still knows, for example, that the first jeans were made in Nîmes?

The exhibition opening will be an opportunity to offer visitors a tasting of some local culinary specialties such as the petits pâtés de Nîmes, brandade de morue and Croquants Villaret, accompanied by a wine from the Costières de Nîmes.

The exhibition benefits from a partnership with the early music department of the Conservatoire à Rayonnement Régional de Paris for a series of concerts related to the exhibition’s theme that will take place in the gallery.

A medieval puppet show, Le Charroi de Nîmes, created specially for this occasion, will be performed several times during the exhibition.

The Wagons of Nîmes

Chanson de geste of the 12th century (excerpts). With medieval puppets, narrator and musician.

This famous song evokes the capture of Nîmes in the 8th century by William of Orange, a hero of medieval literature.

Puppets in the Middle Ages helped popularize the great tales of war and the lives of the saints.

Richard Pech and Jean-Christophe Carrage recreate this tradition according to the sources of the time.

Le Charroi de Nîmes will be preceded by an episode from the life of Saint Baudile, evangelizing saint and martyr of Nîmes.

Concerts Around the Exhibition “L’Art de Nîmes”

Early Music Department of the CRR de Paris (CPES and concert performer track)

As part of the exhibition, a series of concerts is offered by the Conservatoire à rayonnement régional de Paris - CRR.

Friday, March 31, 18:30 – The Reunited Tastes in Southern Baroque

Students from the petits motets class of the Maîtrise de Paris and the DMA of the CRR de Paris (professor Edwige Parat)

French and German motets of the 17th century

PROGRAM

Monday, April 3, 18:30 – Daphnis et Alcimadure by Jean-Joseph Cassanéa de Mondonville (excerpts), An Example of Occitan Baroque

With the DMA students of the CRR de Paris (Personal project coordinated by Alice Marzuola)

Thursday, April 6, 18:30 – An evening of chamber music in 18th-century Nîmes (from Vivaldi to Lutoslawski)

Carte blanche concert by the Young Talents of the double curriculum of the CRR de Paris

Monday, April 10, 18:30 – Italian Splendors and Devotions, Gloria by A. Vivaldi

With the DMA students of the CRR de Paris (Personal project coordinated by Gaël Lefèvre)