We are very fond of the Festival de l’histoire de l’art, an annual three-day event that brings together a wide range of players from the museum, university, heritage and market worlds, as well as students and independent art historians, to hold conferences in the magnificent setting of the Château de Fontainebleau (ill. 1). And we love it so much that we have to tell the truth: if it continues in this way, it will disappear, and that would be a real shame. For this year (June 2, 3 and 4), it concentrated and amplified trends that had already been in the making for some time.
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- 1. Cour de la Fontaine at the Château de Fontainebleau
Photo: Didier Rykner - See the image in its page
First of all, the programme, drawn up by the INHA. One day we’ll have to stop this absurd tradition of choosing a theme, when the subject is art history, and the news - exhibitions, publications, restorations, acquisitions, discoveries, heritage polemics, museum openings, etc. - is rich enough to provide material for several festivals. This year’s theme, the climate, also allowed for every conceivable excess, which it certainly did, as we shall see later.
A new country every year, why not? But as we have already written, Italy, which was the guest country at the first edition, is not expected to return for at least ten or twenty years, which is absurd. It should be scheduled at least once every two or three years.
Finally, this is an art history festival, not a contemporary art festival, which it is tending to become more and more, at the same time as events linked to ancient art, 19th century art or the historical part of the 20th century are becoming increasingly rare. Contemporary art has its place, but it should be from the point of view of history, not of art in the process of being created. And certainly not in such an overwhelming way.
The problem this year was also the dearth of conferences likely to interest a wide audience. There were very few presentations or round-table discussions on art-historical discoveries, forthcoming exhibitions, or current developments in heritage. This is not to say that there was nothing of interest. There was, for example, a fascinating debate on research into 16th-century sculpture in the Bourbonnais region, a programme run by the INHA in conjunction with the Musée Anne de Beaujeu in Moulins, and another on museums and Wikipedia, in which the issue of photo rights and authorisation requests in Italy was addressed (see article). The programme included lectures on the archives of the sculptor Barye, on French portraits in the 16th century, on the painter Antoine Wiertz, on the restoration of a painting by Frans Pourbus in the Musée de Dunkerque (museum closed...), on the restoration of the frescoes at the Porte Dorée in Fontainebleau (see the news item of 15/5/23) compared with that at the Palais de Monaco (see the article), on Rubens or Van Eyck... We’re not exhaustive, but that didn’t stop us from finding nothing of interest to us on several occasions during these three days, whereas in general, and particularly before Covid and the cancelled 2020 edition, we always had two or three conferences we wanted to attend. Frustration is more enjoyable in the end than boredom at an event like this.
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- 2. Diane Bouteiller, winner of the
My thesis in 180 seconds competition
Photo: Didier Rykner - See the image in its page
Also on the plus side was the enjoyable "my thesis in 180 seconds" competition, which saw six very bright candidates (ill. 2) go head to head in a contest of oratory. The two jury winners were also our choices, in order [1]. We can only admire these students, who all managed to sum up brilliantly in 180 seconds what has taken or will take (as the winner was just starting her research) several years of their lives.
If all this is not enough to make a good festival, the conferences often took an unbearable turn, sacrificing themselves to the current fashion that must be called by its name, even if some dare to claim that it does not exist: wokism. Festival-goers were thus treated to debates such as "From ecofeminism to ecoqueer: how art is responding to the climate crisis", where we were surprised that Sandrine Rousseau [2] was not invited, "Seeing and showing slavery: museum audiences", and "Art history in a changing climate", where, on the pretext of talking about Winckelmann, they managed to link all this to "racialism". Strangely enough, gender issues were not addressed. The former director of the Musée de Tervuren in Brussels was even invited to talk about the disastrous treatment he had inflicted on his museum (where, in particular, the sculptures that could not be seen were hidden from public view! But his audience was so sparse (only five or six people) that we finally gave up.
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- 3. "Le Militantisme" debate with two members of "Dernière Rénovation"
Photo: Didier Rykner - See the image in its page
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- 4. Militant Last Renovation
on the alert...
Photo: Didier Rykner - See the image in its page
The most scandalous, however, was the round table entitled "Militantism" (ill. 4) - a well-chosen title - where the Festival de l’Histoire de l’Art dared to invite two members of the "Dernjère Rénovation" movement (ill. 5), the same one that organises assaults on museum works all over Europe on the pretext of fighting the oil industries. Although one of them explained that they were only attacking paintings under glass, this type of action is extremely damaging for the works and the museums, and does nothing to help in the vital fight against global warming. We generally refuse to tackle this vandalism on La Tribune de l’Art because it gives them a visibility they don’t deserve, and may contribute to giving ideas to others. It’s almost certain, if this kind of stupidity continues, that one day a work will actually be vandalised (frames probably already have been).
How, then, can we accept that an art history festival in which the Ministry of Culture is a stakeholder, and which takes place within a château-museum, can invite activists who use these kinds of illegal methods? And how is it possible to understand that he should do so, what’s more, in the context of a round-table discussion at which no contradiction was offered? Alongside the two passionarias had been invited a third speaker, a director of art schools who was no less militant than they were, although he did not appear to engage in actions punishable by the court.
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- 5. Bas Smets at the opening conference of the Festival de l’histoire de l’art
much applauded by Ministry of Culture officials in particular
Photo: Didier Rykner - See the image in its page
The absence of any real debate on the hot topics of the day was even more noticeable with the invitation extended, among the personalities, to Bas Smets, the landscapist in charge of the project for the area around Notre-Dame (see articles). It’s hard to see what this has to do with art history, but let’s face it. But how can we accept, when a petition now has nearly 50,000 signatories opposing his plans supported by Paris City Hall, and when we’re talking about a monument as prestigious as Notre-Dame (here we’re dealing with a real question of art history and heritage), that no debate has been organised with him, even though he was there from the beginning to the end of the festival, opening and closing it? Even worse: at the opening conference, when he concluded with a presentation of the Notre-Dame surroundings, he was applauded vigorously, particularly by the Ministry of Culture officials in the front row (ill. 6). Formal applause, no doubt, but what a detestable signal!
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- 6. Art book fair at the Fontainebleau art history festival
Photo: Didier Rykner - See the image in its page
The disappearance several years ago of the Friends of the Art History Festival association, which was clearly pushed out, even though it contributed to the appeal of this festival; the decrepitude of the Salon du Livre (ill. 7), which has moved to an off-centre location in the Henri IV district instead of the Cour ovale, and which this year only hosted a third of the publishers usually present [3]; the almost total absence of communication which contributed (along with the poverty of the programme) to preventing potential visitors from coming [4]... all this made an edition that we’d like to forget even more sad. The number of visitors was clearly affected (ill. 8): it was obviously so low that the festival’s communications department was careful not to give precise figures, as is customary, contenting itself with announcing that "thousands of curious festival-goers" attended.
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- 7. The oval courtyard of the Château de Fontainebleau was empty at 3.47pm on Sunday.
Photo: Didier Rykner - See the image in its page
Next year it will be Mexico (let’s hope at least that many of the conferences will be devoted to colonial, baroque and 19th century art...) and sport. Sport, of course, because of the Olympic Games! Looking forward to 2025!