Liberté! Ary Scheffer & the French Romanticism

Barricades

Starting October 19, 2024, LIBERTÉ! Ary Scheffer & the French Romanticism will be on display at the Dordrechts Museum. This exhibition takes you back to the turbulent Paris of the first half of the nineteenth century, a time of political unrest and cultural flourishing. Artists like Eugène Delacroix and Théodore Géricault wielded their brushes as weapons or climbed onto the barricades. So did Ary Scheffer (1795-1858), who was born in Dordrecht and quickly became one of the most famous painters in the French capital.

Ary Scheffer

With Delacroix and Géricault by his side, Scheffer fought for liberty and equality—the ideals of the French Revolution of 1789. It was a time of the collective versus the individual. Of individual freedom and expression. In many ways, this Romantic mindset still lives on today. Themes that are still relevant now, such as the power of the people, the strength of activism, and the desire for national autonomy, first resonated during the French Romantic period in massive paintings. Additionally, for Romantics, literature, music, religion, and nature were important sources of inspiration. This is reflected in paintings with beautiful depictions of literary stories, landscapes, and special religious pieces.

Géricault and Delacroix

In addition to an impressive number of paintings by Scheffer (the Dordrechts Museum holds the largest collection worldwide), LIBERTÉ! also features famous artworks from the Château de Versailles and the Louvre, which will be on display in the Netherlands for the first time. Géricault's oil sketch of the world-famous Raft of the Medusa and Delacroix's Episode from the Greek War of Independence will also be showcased for the first time in the country during the exhibition.