Peupler les cieux — Dessins pour les plafonds parisiens au XVIIème siècle — Le Louvre — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: February 20 → May 19, 2014

In the seventeenth century, painted ceiling decoration underwent a profound transformation. The shift from flat ceilings with beams or coffers to vaulted ones inspired artists to develop innovative treatments, playing with the overall ceiling composition and the organization of narrative, ornamental or emblematic aspects.

Major ceiling decoration projects were the ideal canvas for the renewal of forms in the Grand Siècle. The Louvre is home to about one hundred works on paper which, from Simon Vouet to the disciples of Charles Le Brun, give the full measure of this outpouring of creativity.

Eustache Le Sueur, La Naissance de l’Amour, vers 1645- 1647 Huile sur bois — H 182, l.125 cm INV. 8050 © RMN-Grand Palais (musée du Louvre) / Tony Querrec

The wide panoply of avenues explored is clearly evidenced by these sheets, from the unification to the compartmentalization of decorative elements, from the quest for a joining of the arts to the absolute predominance of painting, from a single perspective to a multiplicity of vanishing points. From design to execution, drawing played a central role in ceiling decoration. The exhibition thus presents quick sketches alongside more painstaking studies of groups or individual figures as well as presentation drawings intended for patrons alongside models for subcontractors.