This exhibition from the collections of the National Museum of the Middle Ages – Musée de Cluny in Paris offers a non-traditional perspective of the traditional genres of art of the Middle Ages. Nature in its various forms, shapes and genres of art is the focal point. On one hand, nature represented the source of an almost inexhaustible inspiration for ornaments and symbols of sacred and profane art; on the other hand, and particularly by the end of the Middle Ages, it was an object of depiction and almost scientific interest.
The exhibition collection consists of approximately one hundred exhibits from the 5th to the 16th century, predominantly from the area of “chamber arts”: gold crafts, textile and illuminations. It is complemented by several monumental tapestries and fragments of stone architectural elements. The exposition will also be enriched by several items from Slovak collections (panel paintings, grants of arms, Gothic church pews).
“The Art and Nature of Medieval Europe” is a reciprocal project in relation to the exhibition “Out of Gold and Fire.” The Art of Slovakia at the Dawn of the Middle Ages was prepared by the Slovak National Gallery at Musée de Cluny in Paris in 2010. As opposed to the past exhibition – based on late Gothic sacral sculpting and painting – the current exposition emphasizes various functions - even in profane areas. It also presents artistic genres and types which are almost entirely lacking in our museum collections (for example textiles with oriental motifs from the 5th to 13th centuries, ivory reliefs and tapestries with courtship scenes from the turn of the late 15th and early 16th centuries, etc.).
