Du Nord
Collections du XVe siècle à nos jours
A new opportunity for the public to see the collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Du Nord (From the North) considers the major contribution of artists from northern Europe in a vast overview from the late Middle-Ages to the present day.
From the 18th century onwards, a taste for the “Northern schools” and, in particular, for the “Dutch school” of the Golden Age spread rapidly across Europe. Both the generosity of private donors and the desire in the 19th century to set up a didactical exploration based on the presentation of works from the principal European schools explain the presence in Lausanne of a modest, but high-quality collection of ancient German, Flemish and Dutch paintings and sculptures.
In the late 18th century, the art scene became international. Artists from the Vaud region left for the major artistic centers of the North (Düsseldorf, Münich), either for training or to settle there for good. Exchanges within Europe, and between the French-speaking and German-speaking parts of Switzerland, intensified. The begin of the 20th century marked the beginning of reflections on the existence of a national scene in which specific Latin and Germanic features were discussed, in particular around such emblematic figures as Ferdinand Hodler, Cuno Amiet and Giovanni Giacometti. The museum’s acquisitions, the loans of the Swiss Confederation and of the Gottfried Keller Foundation, opened widely to the artistic productions from the North.
In the 20th and 21st centuries, this opening up would have consequences not just on acquisitions but also on temporary exhibitions. To a wide degree, the successive directors of the institution integrated northern artists, whether the latter were settled in French-speaking Switzerland or working abroad.
It is to this spirit of openness and the salutary wind that it wafts over the museum’s collections that this exhibition bears witness. Occupying all the museum’s galleries, it explores in a broad sweep the history of art from the late Middle Ages to the present day.