Echappées Nordiques
10 Oct 2008 – 11 Jan 2009

Goya’s Caprichos
25 April – 16 August 2008

Philippe de Champaigne
26 April – 15 August 2007

The Palais des Beaux-Arts of Lille has organised in 2007 a world premier retrospective of the Flemish-born French painter Philippe de Champaigne. Philippe de Champaigne – like his contemporary Nicolas Poussin – is considered a unique figure in Western art and thought. _ Enriched by a keen observation of nature in Flanders, he was driven early on by his own inner vision, rendering him impervious to the demonstrative opulence dear to painters of the Italian manner. He appropriates the image with fascinating precision and density, resulting in a near-perfect form of French Classicism.
At once at the centre of political power and spirituality, situated somewhere between Marie de Médicis and the Carmelite order, between Anne of Austria and the Carthusian monks or Richelieu and Cistercian asceticism as practised in the Port-Royal Abbey, Philippe de Champaigne depicts different faces of Grace in a manner that is truly exceptional. With him, painting comes to consummately enrich academic thought.

‘Man-Scape’ (L’Homme-Paysage)
15 October 2006 –14 January 2007

With ‘Man-Scape’, the museum’s first thematic exhibition, visitors are invited to appreciate representations of Nature which have been transformed through the vision of artists from the 16th century to the present day. Beyond the individual artistic visions represented in the paintings, sculptures, and photographs, – works that are at once aesthetic mirages and projections of fantasy – they convey a powerful metaphysical message on Man’s place in the universe. Visitors embark on an unforgettable adventure, making their way through a maze of visual enigmas which, regardless of the period in which they were created, have always had great public appeal.