It was believed to be academic, posterity has made it cursed: Jules Lenepveu had painted the ceiling of the Opera in rue Le Peletier, it burned down;
we owed him the designs of the mosaics for the
Samothrace
staircase in the Louvre, they are masked by false marble;
he is the author of murals dedicated to Joan of Arc in the Pantheon, fate fought hard: in 2020, Anselm Kiefer placed masterful installations in front of them.
Since 1964, Lenepveu is the one who best symbolizes the disdain into which, before the opening of the Musée d'Orsay, the spectacular art of the Second Empire had fallen: Chagall's compositions imposed their colors and their logic on the work of total art that Garnier had wanted - his faithful friend since their years at the Villa Medici.
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A moving set
The Museum of Angers, his birthplace, preserves an important collection of paintings and drawings and the exhibition, imagined by Anne Esnault, which brought together the best specialists in monumental painting of the 19th century, will…
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