The French connection in Bangalore

For three weekends this month, the National Gallery of Modern Art will be the site of a voyage of discovery for those interested in the great French artists of the past two centuries. A series of films will be screened from July 9 to July 24, on Saturdays and Sundays.

NGMA curator Natasha Baruah says: “The NGMA intends to bring the art and culture experience to a wide cross-section of people. These experiences are often only available to a niche audience, and our programmes are free and open to all.

We have been involved with such work in the past too, and this series of films is only in keeping with what we have done in the past. This time, we have entered into collaboration with the Alliance Francaise.”

The films to be screened are biographical sketches of great masters like Paul Cezanne. Both Matisse and Picasso are reported to have said: “Cezanne is the father of us all.”

Yet, Cezanne was initially reviled by critics, his paintings rejected several times by the Salon, the major official exhibition of art that occurred every two years in Paris. How did this recluse, who was slammed by early reviewers, achieve the status of being the very incarnation of the artist?

Cezanne wanted to treat nature “by the cylinder, the sphere, the cone,” reducing what he saw in nature to geometric shapes in his painting. Yet, dynamic tension exists between figures, and there is a unique quality of depth to his work, some of which suffuse two different and simultaneous visual perceptions.

“In art, nothing should look like chance, not even movement,” is a line attributed to Edgar Degas, who is often referred to as an Impressionist although he did not call himself that.

Over half his works depict movement, and many of his paintings are of dancers. He would also say of himself that he could “begin a hundred things and not finish one of them.” Some of his paintings have conspicuously unfinished passages, even when they are otherwise tightly executed.

Towards the end of his life, Degas had problems with vision, and that is often cited as the reason why his works were sometimes left unfinished. One of the films at the NGMA screening will lay bare and question the veracity of the stereotypical image of Degas as the painter of pretty ballet scenes.

Gustave Courbet is among the relatively less known artists to be featured in the film series. Apart from painting landscapes, seascapes and still life, Courbet courted controversy by sometimes making a political statement in his work.

He was also quite radical, and painted subjects considered vulgar. There was boldness in his representation that was quite unique in the nineteenth century, and one look at the Origin of the World on the Internet should make clear how radical the man was, for his time.

Courbet broke many rules; he was also a revolutionary during the days of the Paris Commune. A documentary that is also a portrait of the artist will be screened.

Set within the Apollo Gallery of the museum in Louvre, The Awakening of Apollo is a film in which historians and curators comment on the collection, presenting a fascinating tour of art history.

Another film is an interview with the photographer Willy Ronis, who talks about his career and his life, telling the stories behind some his most famous shots. No set of films could offer a comprehensive account of the art of a nation.

Here, however, is a collection of films likely to whet the appetite, and push you into a deeper search.So what’s next at NGMA? It’s the KK Hebbar retrospective in August.