The World · 09

France

From classical order to Realism, Impressionism, radical colour, the readymade and the body, France becomes a crossroads where the terms of Western art are repeatedly rewritten.

01Claude MonetThe artist who taught painting to see light.02Edouard ManetThe man who dragged painting into the present.03Gustave CourbetModern painting begins with the stubborn fact of material life.04Henri MatisseColour becomes freedom.05Jean-Antoine WatteauPleasure is already shadowed by departure.06Louise BourgeoisMemory gets a body.07Marcel DuchampThe idea becomes the artwork.08Nicolas PoussinPainting becomes a rigorous theatre of ethics, history and order.