Tickets for Musée d'Orsay & Musée de l'Orangerie: Dedicated Entrance

The 19th century saw a boom in the natural sciences. Adventurers discovered new lands and species, geologists uncovered just how ancient the planet is and the epochal transformations she's gone through, and Darwin's work pulled back the curtain on the origins of man.

Scientific revelation had a knock-on influence for the artists of the era, with nature serving to inspire art in a more profound way. Symbolism and Art Nouveau showed a fascination for the origins of life. During this exhibition in collaboration with the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, the d'Orsay will display the milestones of scientific discovery beside its contemporary art.

The first exhibition to show a largely unknown chapter of René Magritte’s work in its entirety, Surrealism in Full Sunlight compares Magritte’s works with those of Auguste Renoir. A period of sunny optimism brought on by the fall of the Nazi regime, particularly after their loss at Stalingrad, Magritte's 'Renoir period' was characterized by serene scenes and an "array of delightful things: women, birds, flowers, trees and an atmosphere of happiness."

Far from regarding this as a passing phase, Magritte considered his 'Renoir Period' important enough to make it the basis of a proposed in-depth reform of Surrealism. To this end, in October 1946, he sent André Breton his manifesto "Surrealism in Full Sunlight", which Breton rejected entirely.

This exhibition brings together around sixty paintings and forty drawings, beginning with several works from the end of the 1930s in which Magritte expresses the imminent outbreak of war and disaster. Magritte’s paintings are set alongside Renoir’s masterpieces, contemporary paintings by Picabia, and other works, notably by Jeff Koons, giving an idea of the influence of these little-known works.

Switzerland was still young in the 1890s, but its native artists – trained in France, Germany, and Italy – brought its fledgling national culture to life with their work. Versed in the European avant-garde, artists like Cuno Amiet, Giovanni and Augusto Giacometti, Felix Vallotton, Ernest Bieler, and Max Buri used an expressive flourish of line and colour to bring about a new movement.

Unfortunately this movement remained little-known in Europe. The Orsay's latest exhibition brings together works that have never previously been shown in France, including around 70 masterpieces of the era, mainly from Swiss public and private collections.