Johannes Moreelse, “Marie Madeleine repenting”, ca 1630, Caen Musée des Beaux Arts

An art critic friend of mine told me that if I wasn’t moved by the show “Le Théâtre des Emotions” at Musée Marmottan-Monet, it meant it was too intellectual for me… Which I concede. The paintings gathered here are all interesting and some of them are even beautiful, but I never found the link between them. Yes “Le verrou de Fragonard” (Fragonard’s bolt) is lent by the Louvre and it is a fascinating work about desire and fear, but why include Alberto Giacommeti’s “Large Head”, Hans Richter’s “Visionary portrait” at the end of the show? I loved of course the room with lovers which includes a Courbet and an Emile Friant. The theme of madness is also well treated. And children are charming. The scenography is as always exquisite. But do these emotions relate to each other?

Louis-Leopold Boilly, “The effect of Melodrama”, ca 1830, Versailles, Musée Lambinet

This is how the curators Dominique Lobstein and Georges Vigarello write about the show: ” This event sets out to evoke the ways in which the history of emotions can be written over time, following the evolution of the psyche from the Middle Ages to the present day. To this end it looks at the way in which artists, in adapting to these developments have theorized the manifestations of the affects and innovated in the representation of expressions, positions, movements. From the inexpressive face painted by the workshop of the Master of the Magdalen Legend, in which only the handkerchief reveals despair, to Pablo Picasso’s Supplicant, which both shows and arouses emotions, this exhibition invites us to explore the labyrinth of visual reflection applied to feelings.”

Christian Boltanski, “Monument”, 1985, Nimes Collection Carré d’art-musée d’Art Contemporain

There is a large section devoted to actors and stage, and Boilly’s paintings are perfectly appropriate with their popular depictions of the public’s emotions. Simon Bernard Lenoir‘s portrait of “Madame Vestris in the part of Electra” was lent by la Comédie Française as is the painting of Talma, its greatest actor from 1787 to 1820.  The famous actress Rachel is portrayed as Lady Macbeth by Charles Louis Müller.  There are two extraordinary paintings by André Devambez, a self portrait as a mocker by Joseph Ducreux, a lovely “Penitent child” by Louis Aubert and “A young girl with her dove” by Jean Baptiste Greuze.

Albert Bertrand, after Felicien Rops, “Agony”, undated, Namur, Musée Félicien Rops, Belgium

Madness and its many manifestations are well represented by Emile Signol‘s “Madness of the Lammermoor fiancée” and Antoine Joseph Wiertz‘s “Hunger, madness and crime” where poverty drives a woman with her naked bosoms  to kill her baby. Her eyes are bulging and she laughs in a manic way. It’s quite a sight. And so is the portrait of “the Morphinomane” by Emilie Charmy, 1878-1974, one of the rare woman painter of the show, but a very daring one, who did not hesitate to paint sexual scenes. So you will enjoy many of these paintings, just forget the theme.

Antoine Joseph Wiertz, “Hunger, madness and crime”, 1853, Brussels, Royal Museum of art, Musée Antoine Wiertz

Musée Marmottan-Monet has published (with the marvelous Editions des Cendres) under Erik Desmazières’s impulse “Eurêka” the souvenirs and journal of Jeannie Gobillard-Valéry (1894-1901). She was Paul Valery’s wife but also Berthe Morisot’s niece, who painted her as a little girl. She was so close to Julie Manet, her first cousin, that they were married the same day in the same ceremony when Julie married Ernest Rouart and they lived in the same house 40 rue de Villejust on the 3rd and 4 th floor.

Until August 21, Musée Marmottan Monet.