Course "Othoniel at the Louvre Museum"
On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Pyramid, the Louvre Museum invites the artist Jean-Michel Othoniel, who proposes an original creation inspired by a detail of a painting by Rubens, declined in six paintings and a book.
The Rose du Louvre, installation in the Puget courtyard
From May 24, 2019 to February 24, 2020, Jean-Michel Othoniel presents in the Puget courtyard, among the masterpieces of garden statuary of the 17th and 18th centuries, an installation composed of six original paintings made of ink and white gold leaf. To create these paintings, the artist was inspired by the rose painted by Rubens in The Marriage of Mary of Medici and Henry IV (1621-1625).
This rose is for Jean-Michel Othoniel the emblematic flower of the museum. Queen among flowers, triumphant, symbol of power and passion, this rose painted with great freedom tells us about the destiny of a woman, her beauty, her love stronger than death, the history of France, the history of the museum. Through this installation, Jean-Michel Othoniel invites the visitors to a dreamlike walk combining sculptures, herbarium, paintings and garden.
L’Herbier Merveilleux, co-edition Louvre Museum / Actes Sud
This book collects notes that Jean-Michel Othoniel gleaned on the secret language of flowers and their symbolism. It reveals their hidden meaning by telling their stories and mythologies. The artist returns to his first love. During his years of studies he was a day and night guard at the Louvre. During the year 2018, he again explored the empty rooms of the largest museum in the world to pick in the eight departments the flowers painted, carved, drawn, embroidered, glazed hiding the masterpieces of the collection. He thus composed a new herbarium. In the museum, Othoniel photographed the flowers represented in sculptures, tapestries, frescoes, architectural elements, furniture and paintings. Among the details of flowers appear the thistle in the self-portrait painted by Durer, the apple resting on the stool in The Lock of Fragonard, the peony in the unbuttoned shirt of the girl in the broken jug of Greuze or the palm on the arm of Saint Apolline by Zurbarán ...
Video by Nikolaï Saoulski