Entretiens du Louvre

"André Chastel, Charles Sterling, Richard Krautheimer, Francis Haskell - for the first time on television, the veil is lifted from the great art historians. Beyond their strong personality, their life, their exceptional destiny which is gradually revealed, each film takes the spectator through the complexities of their research, which are inextricably linked to the intellectual history of this century. Four meetings, four warm portraits which are free of the ponderous nature of traditional interviews.

Art history is treated as an independent discipline. This is the aim of the series: Entretiens du Louvre. In this series, we aim to air all points of view. Connoisseurship is closest to that of the custodians, whose job it is to deal with dating and attribution, with a kind of expertise. We intend to show all the processes, all the trends, and thus to demonstrate the diversity of research and points of view. Some people aim to create a historical methodology based on documentary sources, others wish to broadly call upon the human sciences, others on iconology and iconography, or even on the history of taste and ideas. In this series, we have attempted to demonstrate this rich variety through these men. This is why there is no preferred order. Each film is a whole in itself. Art history is the work of strong personalities.

• Chastel: a rounded personality, he was the most complete French art historian, and his influence over two generations of art historians, curators and academics has been quite determining.

• Sterling: we have shown the role of research for a museum curator.

• Francis Haskell is the youngest in the series. This film truly grasps the international activity of an art historian. From Oxford to Paris and to Rome, we see how the invisible threads are woven, causing each country to develop his taste and his knowledge of art on a terrain and through a history which is unique to him.

• Richard Krautheimer is the doyen of currently active art historians. He is both an archeologist and a Renaissance art historian. He thus bears witness to three lines of experience, German, American and finally Italian. As a specialist in the first Christian churches, the Corpus which he has produced enabled us to present one of the essential tools of art history.

• Federico Zeri truly illustrates the vitality of Italy in the sphere of art history, being without doubt the greatest connoisseur of Italian painting since Longhi.
  Interview with Michel Laclotte, director of the Louvre museum (1987-1994).

Louvre Menu