Finding the ‘Asian’ in Post-Impressionism at the Louvre Abu Dhabi

Four women in black burqas look up, heads cocked, at The Funeral of Mona Lisa, artist Yan Pei-Ming’s monumental installation at the Louvre Abu Dhabi. A European painting reinterpreted by a Chinese-born artist within the setting of the Middle East, it is a stunning study in contrasts — as an Instagrammable photo and the museum’s ambition to build dialogues between cultures and broaden the art history canon.

This is reflected in the museum’s acquisitions and exhibitions, including its latest, Post-Impressionism: Beyond Appearances. Walking past the delicate stippling of Neo-Impressionist painters Georges Seurat and Léo Gausson, and the lush brush strokes of Paul Cézanne and Vincent van Gogh, you could be forgiven for thinking it is yet another Eurocentric curation of the period. But as you move deeper into the gallery, a fresher global perspective becomes apparent. Especially how Asian art had an impact on the artists.

Hosted in collaboration with the Musée d’Orsay in Paris and art consultancy France Muséums, the exhibition features more than 100 artworks, including paintings, works on paper and textile, by leading figures of Post-Impressionism. The art movement, which began in France and developed between 1886 and 1905, saw artists moving away from naturalistic depictions to a more personal style that was a window into their minds.

Chief curator Jérôme Farigoule with Paul Cézanne’s Mont Sainte-Victoire
| Photo Credit:
Courtesy the Department of Culture and Tourism-Abu Dhabi

Global influences

Van Gogh’s The Bedroom at Arles (1889) has never been a favourite. Until I see the painting, and co-curator Jean-Rémi Touzet asks me not to “look at it with the rules of perspective in mind”. The conservateur peinture of Musée d’Orsay, instead, shifts my attention away from the awkwardly slanting blue walls (darkened over the years from its original lilac) and the confusing scale of the chrome yellow chairs and bed, to what the Dutch artist wanted to convey: absolute restfulness. It is also an attempt to share a slice of his life with his family — a ‘Look mum, here’s my room with its scarlet blanket’ painting.

Vincent van Gogh’s The Bedroom at Arles
| Photo Credit:
Courtesy the Department of Culture and Tourism-Abu Dhabi

More interesting, however, is the Asian influence to be seen in the work by this canonical European name. Touzet points out how van Gogh “suppressed the shadow, and painted it in flat tints like a Japanese print”. This is also where the exhibition deviates from many earlier Post-Impressionist curations. It has the works of two Japanese artists whose art is believed to have inspired the painter: Utagawa Hiroshige’s Plum Garden at Kameido (1857) and Sudden Shower on Shin-Ōhashi Bridge and Atake (1857), and Katsushika Hokusai’s Yōrō Waterfall in Mino Province (1830-1834).

Among the nine sections of the show — divided to highlight the distinctive journeys of the Post-Impressionists — other Asian, Polynesian and Middle Eastern influences gradually surface. Be it Paul Gauguin’s journey to Tahiti and the Marquesas Islands, where he depicted life as an untouched paradise in paintings such as Arearea (1892), or Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s posters such as Divan Japonais (1892) that feature simpler elements, a departure from the more elaborate European traditions.

Paul Gauguin’s Arearea
| Photo Credit:
Courtesy the Department of Culture and Tourism-Abu Dhabi

Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec’s Divan Japonais
| Photo Credit:
Courtesy the Department of Culture and Tourism-Abu Dhabi

Towards the end of the exhibition are two paintings by Egyptian artist Georges Hanna Sabbagh, The Artist and His Family at the Church of La Clarté (1920) and The Family: The Sabbaghs in Paris (1921). His work, with a contrasting colour palette drawn from his homeland, was heavily influenced by the Nabi movement, a branch of Post-Impressionism. As Jérôme Farigoule, chief curator at Louvre Abu Dhabi, explains: “He went to Paris [to École du Louvre]. He was a pupil of Félix Vallotton and Paul Sérusier, and learned from the pictorial lessons of Paul Cézanne. He was a bridge between the East and the West, and a great starting point for emerging art in this part of the world.”

Georges Hanna Sabbagh’s The Family: The Sabbaghs in Paris
| Photo Credit:
Courtesy the Department of Culture and Tourism-Abu Dhabi

$27 billion game plan

Fostering local talent has been a mainstay of the United Arab Emirates since the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan established it in 1971. Emirati artists went to Cairo to study art in the 1970s, and from the 80s, they began travelling farther, to countries such as the U.K., the U.S., and Russia. Once back home, they set up institutions such as the Cultural Foundation to grow the local art scene.

Louvre Abu Dhabi fit into this, as one of the early initiatives in the region to be a point of convergence between the UAE and the rest of the world. It opened in 2017, a little over a decade after Abu Dhabi’s Department of Culture and Tourism decided to develop Saadiyat Island, just off the coast of the capital city, into the Saadiyat Cultural District — as part of a plan to diversify the emirate’s economy and establish the city as a major cultural destination.

The Louvre Abu Dhabi
| Photo Credit:
Courtesy the Department of Culture and Tourism-Abu Dhabi

And now, as its neighbour, Saudi Arabia, signs deals with countries such as the U.K. to share cultural and creative expertise, and promotes the heritage of the AlUla region with immersive on-site museums, UAE is approaching the final stages of its $27 billion cultural and tourism game plan. The next few months and years will see Guggenheim Abu Dhabi, Zayed National Museum, teamLab Phenomena Abu Dhabi, Natural History Museum Abu Dhabi, Manarat Al Saadiyat art gallery, and Berklee Abu Dhabi open on the island.

“It’s exciting to have this kind of momentum in West Asia with the building of new outposts of western museums, which gives locals as well as people in the region access to institutions that they may not have otherwise. Also, given the increasing global strife, it’s important to have these cultural linkages — in the absence of a shared narrative when it comes to media and entertainment,” says Gayatri Rangachari Shah, a journalist and art aficionado. “These institutions act as vital resources to bring people together and foster greater understanding of each other.”

The Guggenheim — with its asymmetrical cluster of galleries of varying heights and shapes, designed by architect Frank Gehry (incidentally, the largest of the Manhattan museum’s four outposts at 42,000-square-metres) — is visible from the sun-scorched terrace of the Louvre Abu Dhabi, across a channel of water. It The structure, reminiscent of a large spider sunning itself, will house art from the 1960s onwards, with a dedicated focus on the Gulf and West Asia, North Africa, and South Asia.

The Guggenheim
| Photo Credit:
Surya Praphulla Kumar

Once completed, the museums and galleries will be a short bike or car ride from each other, and will help boost each other’s numbers. “Last year, 1.2 million people visited Louvre Abu Dhabi, which is the highest so far,” says the museum’s director Manuel Rabaté. “We are already at this figure now, so we will cross it by the end of 2024.” Their upcoming roster of global programming — The Kings and Queens of Africa in January 2025; a show inspired by Asian trade routes; an exhibition focused on the art of the Mamluk, the slave warriors of medieval Islam; and a possible exploration of work by Arab artists who settled in Paris and built a new tradition of art — will ensure the number continues to ascend. “We are the first universal museum of the Arab world. By showcasing a variety of topics, we hope to engage different audiences and rebalance global narratives. We are trying to bring everyone to the table,” Rabaté concludes.

Post-Impressionism: Beyond Appearances is on till February 9, 2025, at the Louvre Abu Dhabi.

The writer was in Abu Dhabi on invitation.