Suggestion: Schubert, Piano Trio N° 2, op. 11, D. 929, Andante con moto (1827)
The ‘Muses’ companion since Antiquity, wine has been represented through many different art forms, such as literature, music and photography, as well as architecture, decorative and fine arts. Wine seems to have been a particular source of fascination for painters.
LUNCHEON OF THE BOATING PARTY (Detail)
Auguste Renoir (1841-1919)
1880-1881
The Phillips Collection, Washington DC
Wine takes centre stage in this painting by Renoir. Placed at the heart of the action, wine plays an active role and contributes to the painting’s happy, serene atmosphere. The people in the painting are shown as happy to be together and enjoying the delights of friendship. Duncan Phillips describes this work as “overflowing with contagious good humour”.
Painters, whether great or minor masters, have always acted as commentators. By telling the story of wine and the vine, which is a part of our social, cultural, religious, political and economic history across the ages, these artists help us better understand our own story.
>> A THEMATIC TOUR: 5 COLLECTIONS, 31 PAINTING GALLERIES
THE VIRTUAL WINE MUSEUM'S COLLECTIONS
From Divine to Sacred
Fr. Drinking to Savoir-boire
From vineyard to Vat
Décrivez votre imageIn Still Life
In Illumination
Décrivez votre imageOver a quarter of the pictorial works on display (excluding illuminations) are the work of great masters including Titian, Vermeer, Goya, Manet, Cezanne, Renoir, Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec... Around 40 great masters show us the roles and uses of wine: from divine and sacred wine to everyday companion, the ‘wine cycle’ from vine to port, and wine as an important element in still life.
Great Masters: their contribution to The Virtual Wine Museum >>
The Virtual Wine Museum: Wine in the Arts, from Antiquity to the present day
While painting – canvases, frescoes and illuminations – takes centre-stage, the Virtual Wine Museum also exhibits many other art forms. It’s the museum of the “wine of the arts”, telling the story of wine from Antiquity to the present day.
WINE AND THE ARTS >>
PICTURE OF THE MONTH >>
WINE AND PAINTING >>
Let us suggest the following route around the museum: Wine and the Arts to whet your appetite, the Work of the Month to awaken your senses and the Gallery Collections to taste at your leisure or by following the guided tour below and at the bottom of the page. If you are pressed for time, why not take a quick trip around The Virtual Wine Museum’s selected highlights?
VIDEO: Wine-drinkers, Painters bear witness
12 WORKS SELECTED AND COMMENTED BY THE VIRTUAL WINE MUSEUM
THE BROTHERS CLARKE WITH OTHER GENTLEMEN TAKING WINE
Gawen Hamilton, between 1730 and 1735 - Yale University, New Haven, CT, US
Wine-drinkers have been portrayed by every kind of artist, and by great masters as well as more minor painters. One of these painters, Manet (who played a significant role in the representation of wine in art) believed that art should reflect life. Wine, when represented on canvas, is no exception to this rule.
Such images are documentary, journalistic: they tell us the role played by wine in all walks of life, without exceptions. Daily life, social life, drunkenness and savoir-boire. Wine has been used as a social marker in every historical era...
A new perspective on the knowledge of wine
This site was originally developed as part of a university project based around the creation of a virtual wine museum dedicated primarily to the medium of painting. The objective was to show how, and according to which themes, artists have treated wine and the vine. Like physical museums, virtual museums aim to promote culture and to make it accessible for everyone. André Malraux’s ‘imaginary museum’ or ‘the museum without walls’ (as it is often translated)* is closer than ever before, thanks to new technological formats : Malraux' imaginary museum has become a virtual museum >>
The Virtual Wine Museum shares Malraux’s vision and offers a new perspective on the knowledge of wine and its history, especially social history.
The museum’s creator, Eric Beau, is a member of the UNESCO network 'Chair Culture and Traditions of Wine', Dijon. After having spent many years amidst the vines of the Côte de Beaune in Burgundy, he now lives in Bordeaux. He lectures at the University of Burgundy and in Bordeaux region.
Vincent Van Gogh, 1888 - Rijksmuseum Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, The Netherlands
The Virtual Wine Museum is in accordance with the definition of a museum by ICOM (International Council of Museums): 'A museum is a non-profit, permanent institution in the service of society and its development, open to the public, which acquires, conserves, researches, communicates and exhibits the tangible and intangible heritage of humanity and its environment for the purposes of education, study and enjoyment.'
65% of the works presented in the Museum are conserved in 142 overseas museums spread over 42 countries; 22% are kept in French galleries and 13% belong to private collections across the globe.
The Virtual Wine Museum is a non-profit venture. Open to all, it aims to be an international point of reference, both a historical and educational goldmine for enthusiasts and students, and an accessible, easy-to-understand site for the general public.
Georges-Henri Riviere, founder and creator of the Beaune Wine Museum and the National Museum of Folk Art and Tradition, liked to say that 'the importance of a museum cannot be measured in terms of visitor numbers, but by the number of visitors who have learned something there.' Not to mention the number of visitors who come back. For virtual museums, this is truer than ever. We hope that you enjoy your visit.
Picture of the Month: Edgar Degas
'Degas often made portraits of his family and friends but he was also an attentive observer of the working world in millinery workshops or laundries. Only Daumier before him had taken an interest in washerwoman, who became one of Degas's favourite subjects between 1869 and 1895. At first he painted single figures seen against the light, picked out sharply against the white linen. Then, about 1884-1886, he dwelled more heavily on the subject, this time depicting two women in a laundry... The choice of this subject echoes the naturalist and social concerns of some of the artist's contemporaries, in literature as well as in painting. Zola's novel L'Assommoir published in 1877 describes Gervaise's laundry and gives a bald description of the miserable lot of the poor in Paris. Depicted hard at work, weary to the bone, the two women in Degas's painting illustrate a lucid view of the working class but one not devoid of tenderness. Degas has concentrated on the women's gestures trying to catch fleeting, everyday movements in a representation that is neither heroic nor caricatured...' (Source: Musée d'Orsay)
Edgar Degas, ca. 1884-1886 - Musée d'Orsay, Paris
Exhibitions : Abstract Art & Street Art
Contemporary art is the order of the day. From 2002, Bertrand Sallard, an abstract painter living in Burgundy, has used chalk and pastels to create a sizeable series of coloured compositions entitled Variations, rapidly executed using vertical bands and superposition. The “Fonds National d’Art Contemporain” has acquired one of his works. Here, we can explore variations on the “vine to wine” process, following the rhythm of the seasons: January Morning, Winter Pruning...
With street art and graffiti, Bacchus and wine have taken over walls in cities worldwide. While some see graffiti as undesirable, others consider its most elaborate forms a type of art that deserves attention.
Dry pastel - © Bertrand Sallard, 2017-2018
Street artist: Miss. Tic - Paris 13
BLOG: Wine, Art and Museum News (Fr.)
Vinification has existed for millennia. Scientists agree that it was first practised in the Caucuses, since the 19th century considered the homeland of vine cultivation. Georgia has confirmed its position as the birthplace of viticulture with some new archaeological discoveries. Winegrowing originated over 8,000 years ago, almost ten decades earlier than previously thought. Before the announcement, the earliest evidence of viticulture – dating from around 5,000 BC – had been found in Iran’s Zagros mountains. Residue found in eight large ceramic containers had been identified as wine by researchers from the University of Pennsylvania, the Georgian National Museum and the University of Toronto. This discovery is the earliest evidence of winemaking by humans to date.
Blog (Fr.) : Wine, Art, and Museum News | Works to know >>
ca. 6000 B.C. - Image released by the Georgian National Museum on November 13, 2017
What's new at The Virtual Wine Museum?
Ossip Zadkine often made reference to the cafés, particularly those of Montparnasse, that he frequented with Modigliani until the painter’s death. Doubtless these included the smoky universe of La Rotonde, a regular haunt and a place where painters, musicians and poets were known to mix.
Zadkine always drew attention to his characters by making them much larger than the surrounding urban landscape. In The Guitar Player, if the pavement café in the foreground is animated by the guitarist and sitting customers, the road behind is deserted, grey and lined with identical-looking houses. The undetailed, pastel-hued figures are brought to the fore by the brighter colours of the setting.
Ossip Zadkine, 1920 - Private collection
Ossip Zadkine, 1920 - Mus. d'Art Moderne, Paris
Ossip Zadkine, 1921 - Collection Mr. & Mrs. Nash, London
André Lhote, 1916
George Grosz, 1922
Le Corbusier, 1922
Pablo Picasso, 1905
André Derain, 1911
Egon Schiele, 1913
Street artiste : Daniel Marcel
Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, 1914
Anselm Kiefer, 1976?
Max Beckmann, 1919
Pablo Picasso, 1903
Josef Herman, 1957
Eugene Laermans, 1898
Sebastiano Ricci, bef. 1710
John Cranch, ca. 1804
Pierre de Belay, 1937
Twitter 2019: the most popular works
The 2019 star of the Virtual Wine Museum’s Twitter account is this stained glass from Notre-Dame in Paris. Like the rest of the western rose window, it escaped the blaze. The glass depicts each month’s agricultural work associated with its zodiac sign, Virtues and Vices, the prophets and, in the centre, the Virgin Mary. Traditionally, Aries – the first fire sign – starts off the new annual cycle. Spring has just arrived and a man is pruning the vine. March is always the best month for such work. “Trim on St Aubin’s Day [1st March] and big grapes will come your way…” The depiction of vices and virtues, the star signs and the work associated with them is typical of the Middle Ages. The rose window is a colourful reflection of the stone bas-reliefs of the western façade, which used to be painted but are now bare. This image is taken from the left door, known as the Virgin’s Door..
Vine and wine in stained-glasses >>
Notre-Dame de Paris - West rose window, zodiac, 1220/25
Edouard Vuillard, 1891
British School, 1545
Leandro Bassano, ca. 1595-1600
Jan Steen, 1663/64
Jean-Louis Forain, 1894
Peter Bruegel the Elder, ca. 1565-68
Giovanni Bellini, ca. 1515
Pieter Aertsen, 1552
Paul Cézanne, 1894/95
Pellerin, Epinal, 1836
TWITTER 2018
Heures de Catherine de Médicis, 1500/50?
Francesco Bassano, ca. 1576
Unknown artist
Lucas Cranach the Younger, 1569
Cosimo Rosselli, 1480/82
15th century - Brøns Kirke, Denmark
Peter Bruegel the Elder, 1559
Livre des propriétés des choses, 1480
Georges de Sonneville, 1922
