- WASHINGTON (USA)
Exhibition: Looking Up: Studies for Ceilings, 1550–1800
In modern architecture and contemporary interior design, ceilings have lost much of their original, complex meaning, becoming neutral fields or featuring generic decoration. However, in the European tradition that spanned nearly four centuries, ceilings were where the most ambitious, compelling, and meaningful painted compositions appeared.
National Gallery of Art exhibition “Looking Up: Studies for Ceilings, 1550–1800” presents some 30 examples of the evolution of ceiling decoration. These works move from architectural frameworks housing conventional paintings to the illusion of a single, soaring space teeming with figures and dynamic movement during the baroque, and then on to the geometric organization and idealized form associated with neoclassism.
Some of the drawings are vibrant preliminary studies; others are large-scale models that give a sense of the experience of the intended final composition. Studies of single motifs and individual figures reveal how these grand projects enticed viewers to pause and look up.
January 29 – July 9, 2023
- PARIS (FRANCE-EU)
Exhibition: The Splendours of Uzbekistan’s Oases
Louvre Museum prouding presents this exhibition that takes visitors on a fascinating journey to the crossroads of civilisations, in the heart of central Asia, in Uzbekistan, where Samarkand and Bokhara are household names. But many other trading posts in the region brought to light works of art that are now listed as objects of world heritage.
A large selection of these masterworks will leave Uzbekistan for the first time and undergo special conservation treatment for the exhibition, including monumental wall paintings from the Ambassadors’ Hall in Samarkand and its surroundings, the pages of one of the oldest monumental Korans from the early days of Islam from Katta Langar, in Sogdiana, and other treasures in gold from Bactria (Dalverzin Tepe), silver, silk, and fine ceramics. The exhibition also showcases several masterpieces from the famous 16th-century miniature paintings of the School of Bukhara.
Thanks to exceptional loans from Uzbekistan, and from major European museums, the exhibition encompasses nearly 130 works and invites visitors to embark on a journey through space and time. The riveting tale of 17 centuries sheds light on why this far-flung region near China and India fascinated Alexander the Great and the caliphs of Baghdad, beyond the Iranian world, further east. This hotspot of exchange and cultural flourishing provided a forum where Western and Eastern civilisations could dialogue and mingle harmoniously.
November 23, 2022 – March 6, 2023
