The World War II, which took
place between 1939 and 1945,
witnessed among many tragedies,
a great deal of material destruction.
It left, as the expression says,
fields of ruins all over
Europe. Nazi Germany throughout
its conquests wasn't content
with ocuppying, murdering, destroying,
deporting populations or humiliating
in all possible and unimaginable ways,
the Nazis also wanted seize many
works of art and send them
directly to Germany. They wanted to
dispossess certain great families
and great museums to enrich their
Reich. Such was the will
of Adolf Hitler. I say that they
wanted because many resisted,
hid and lied about the presence of
certain works in order to preserve them
from destruction or dispossession.
There are tons of stories
during the World War, but the one
I'm about to tell you takes
place at the Louvre, but also in
different castles in France, it
concerns a vast enterprise which aims to
substract the great works of art of
nazi claws to put these paintings
sculptures, drawings and other works of
art back where they were supposed to
stay, in the museum, once
the war was over.
This story was inspired by a
new opera with a libretto by Michel
Marc Bouchard and music by Julien
Bilodeau, which will soon be presented at
the Opera of Montreal and which stages
precisely these events. Don't worry,
i'll tell you more about it
in the second part of the
video! And besides, I'm going to
need someone who knows about art,
and I call to Florence Agathe Dubé Moreau
gone
Hello Florence!
Hi, all right? Yes!
I'm an art historian and
exhibition curator.
Is who, a bit like a
director, makes the link
between artists, art-
works and public in
exhibition halls.
-Very clear. So, where we want to follow
you? - Super easy, on my
Instagram page you can see my
projects, my tech and discover lots
of artists and visual arts places in
Montreal. -I'm going there now!
Today on History today will tell us, the
crazy story of the Louvre
art-works safeguarding during the
World War II.
Subtitles: salvadorarmandoul@gmail.com
We're in the 1930s, two characters
are at the heart of the story
of the Louvre art-works preservation.
Initially, Jacques Jaujard, born
on December 3,
1895 who was a journalist, but above all
director of the National Museums and
the École du Louvre.
Secondly: Rose Valland, on his
side was born on September 1,
1898 and who, at the star of the war,
was curator of the Jeu de Paume Museum.
Both hold important positions
in the promotion of art-works
in Parisian Museums. However,
further west, Adolf hitler seized power
and gradually expanding the borders
of Nazi Germany. In march 1936, Hitler
ordered his troops, in what appears to
be a clear violation of the
Treaty of versailles terms which
ended World War I in 1918, to
militarily reoccupy the Rhineland.
Two years later, in 1938, Hitler
marched his troops on Austria, in
what's called Anschluss, i.e., pure and
simple annexation of the country
by Germany. Nazi forces march
on Vienna without fired any shot.
It now appears obvious that
Hitler seeks to reunified under his regime
all the German-speaking populations. The
echoes in Paris speaks of a new war
and it's feared that the city of light will be
bombed, that its museums will be destroyed and
with them, thousands of art-works that
make it rich. Jacques Jaujard, well
aware of the political events taking
place, doesn't intend to be left
behind and intends to act before it's
too late. It must be said that he
has experience. In 1936, in the
midst of Spanish Civil War, he was
appointed delegate of the international
committee set up to safeguard
Spanish treasures. Hundreds
of art-works were then evacuated from
the Prado Museum. Goyas, Grecos,
Velasquezm, Titian, and Rubens are
thus saved. Returning to France, Jaujard
felt that tide was turning
and the outbreak of war risked
compromising the Louvre Museum
collections. Jaujard had the
evacuation plan for a few years,
he even until testing it in 1938.
For several years, he has
begun to identify different places
that could receive the art-works,
such as Brissac, Cheverny, Chambord
or the Château of Valençay, the latter
had moreover been requisitioned in
March 1939. The big day arrives. On
August 25, 1939, a few days before the
official war declaration on
September 1,
the operation was launched.
The Louvre is officially closed. An
army of volunteers is busy
wrapping the art-works, in particular by
the wrappers of La Samaritaine.
They unhook the paintings and roll them
up to leave only the frames in place.
We can also see, in a photo taken
in September 1939, the spectacle of the
great abandoned gallery, stripped of
its paintings. In total
nearly 4000 art-works
will be sent all over
France to be safe from
war and the Nazis.
Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa left the Louvre on
August 28, 1939, the masterpiece will travel a
lot, to say the least.
Initially to Chambord,
then to Louvigny and to the abbey of Loc-
Dieu de Montauban before arriving in
the Lot, where it remains for two years
in the Montal's Castle. In order not to
attract prying eyes, they'll
even go so far as to hide the canvas under
one of the castle beds. Imagine it
under a bed.
With the official outbreak of
the war, transfers are
accelerated, other masterpieces were then
packaged such as the Victory of
Samothrace or Venus de Milo
which would join the Castle of Valençay.
Meanwhile, Germans advance quickly
and on June 22, 1940, the armistice was signed
between France and Nazi Germany. In
1940, France will be divided into
a free zone and an occupied zone.
Paris is in the occupied zone. However,
shortly after the armistice, in 1940,
Hitler had ordered the "security"
of art-works belonging to the
French state, but also art-works belonging
to individuals, specifically
targeting Jewish families... The Germans
set up an organization, the Kunstschutz,
whose goal is to preserve the
artistic heritage during
armed conflicts. The one named in
France by the Nazis is Franz von Wolf-
Metternich. While he expected to
be in open conflict, Jaujard will
find an unexpected ally in Wolf-
Metternich, who being in love with
art and understanding very well the
need to save French heritage.
The Louvre under the Occupation
remained under the direction of
the French administration,
recognized by the Germans but
controlled by the Vichy government,
that of Marshal Pétain.
However, other works are to be considered, those
of private collections. Here, von Wolf-
Metternich can't help Jaujard and
his team, several collectors
were robbed and their art-works were
grouped together in the Jeu Paime Museum. Here
the Nazis want to have
some of these works sent to the future
museum in Linz, wanted by the Führer
himself but also for Marshal
Goering,
who intends to sent to
his personal residence certain art-works.
This is where Rose Valland comes in.
At the Jeu de Paume Museum she's
replaced by the German art
historian and collector Bruno Lhose.
Rose Valland, however, accepts the
subordinate position of concierge and intends
to resist the looting that she sees
every day. Her work will be crucial
for safeguarding and especially for
finding the works that will be sent
to Germany. A small point of context,
it must be specified that for the Nazis
there was what was called
true art and degenerate art, which
roughly corresponded to modern art,
considered decadent, Jewish and amoral.
At the end of 1940, Hermann Goering, one
of the most powerful men
of the Third Eeich, personally visited
the Tennis Museum and found that
several works were, in the eyes
of Nazis, unworthy. They must
disappear. These works will soon
be placed in a room at the back
of the tennis court that Rose Valland
will name "martyrs' room". In May 1943, Rose
Valland witnessed one of the greatest
rampages ever seen. The nazis burned
hundreds of art-works in the
Tuileries Gardens adjoined the Tennis Museum.
These works are priceless,
including those of Picasso, Klee,
Légers or even Miro. Fists clenched,
Rose Valland notes in her notebook
on July 23, 1943, and I quote: The paintings
massacred in the sequestration of the
Louvre were brought back to the Jeu de
Paume (a truckload, about 5 or 6 hundred) and
burned under German supervision
in the museum garden from 11 am. to 3 pm.
Impossible to save anything." It must be said
that Rose Valland, while remaining as
concierge of the Museum, she the former
curator has given herself the mission
of collecting and collating all the
information on the art-works in
transit or that are destroyed. For
each one she notes the title, the name of
the artist, the measures and the year.
This information will be crucial
for the allies. Moreover, in 1944,
an american service called
Monuments, Fine Arts, and Archives Programm was set up,
whose members are nicknamed the Monuments Men,
which produced the film released
in 2014. -"The nazis theft art-works in
Varsovia, Amsterdam, Paris. You must
constitute a team to save what
can be and find what
has disappeared"
Thanks to the hard work of
Rose Valland but also of Jacques
Jaujard, and of her links with Jeanne
Boitel, a famous committed French actress,
whose code name was Mozart,
which lists the works sequestered
by the Germans, the Resistance succeeded
in stopping a train containing 1200
art-works. It's said that Rose Valland's
notes will have enabled
nearly 60,000 spoliated works to
return to France or to be returned.
Ultimately, it'll be quite an adventure to
save the French artistic heritage
and it'll be the action of men and
women who by zeal and blind
dedication, will ensure the maintenance of the
Louvre collections. Paris was released on
August 25, 1944, and the Louvre Museum was at the
center of the fighting. It's even said that
of the 630 German prisoners taken by
the Resistance, some taken by
panic movement following stray bullets, will
hide in Egyptian sarcophagi
where they'll be discovered by the
French resistance fighters. The return of
the Louvre art-works began in the
spring of 1945 and lasted more than a year.
Finally in 1947, its noticed that no
art-work was missing and the Grande
Galerie was officially opened on
October 7. Let's now dive into the heart of
the opera The Beauty of the World to
learn more about two art-works that
were central to its creation and which we
find throughout the show.
First stop, Matisse. More precisely,
his painting entitled: Seated woman. Well,
I describe it to you a bit. We
see a woman- facing us-
comfortably seated on an
armchair in a domestic interior.
She wears pale clothes, a
pearl necklace and holds a fan in her
hand. This work, made around 1924, is
famous for two reasons. First, because
it's signed by Matisse. Henri
Matisse is a French painter who
marked the art history in the
first half of 20th century. He's
one of the key figures of the
artistic period called modern art
-and his research on color
and the simplification of forms
will make him a leader of the Fauvist
movement. The work Seated Woman is also
famous because of its history. In
1941, it was seized in France by
Nazi soldiers while sheltering
in a deposit of art-works
belonging to the famous art dealer
Paul Rosenberg -who is one of the
greatest gallerists of modern art-. In
2013, 72 years after its disappearance, it
was spotted in Germany as part
of a journalistic investigation. And
finally in 2015, thanks to the efforts
of lawyer Christopher Marinello
-a specialists in the search for
stolen art-works- it was returned to the
Rosenberg family, a restitution that
would be highly publicized in the
art world. Second stop,
La Joconde. Centerpiece of the Louvre
-it would have been painted between 1503 and
1518 by Leonardo da Vinci. The Mona Lisa
is presented as a small oil
painting done on a wooden panel.
It's a portrait of a woman,
believed to be called Lisa, who poses
seated in the foreground of a
mountainous landscape. And... certainly,
the most emblematic and important
descriptive feature of the work:
the young woman looks and smiles at us. At
the time, this artistic decision went
completely against the norms
of portraiture in high society,
where full profile portraits
with neutral expression were prefered.
This makes the Mona Lisa, or "Madame
Lisa" in French, one of the first
smiling portraits in the art history. But
it's far from being the only element
that contributes to the myth
surrounding this work. From the outset, it should
emphasized that there are less
than fifteen paintings attributed to
Leonardo da Vinci throughout the world,
and the Mona Lisa would be among the
last he would have completed before
his sudden death in 1519. Thus, the
Mona Lisa is one of the rare examples of the
exceptional technical mastery of
Leonardo who, as a perfect
"Renaissance man", was equal parts
scientists, engineers, and artists. And he
distinguished simultaneously in all these
fields. Painting and drawing were
therefore means for him among others
to study nature and the human
body. This is exactly what we
find in the Mona Lisa. Where, for example,
the landscape in the background is
emblematic of his mathematical
research aimed at pushing the
limits of the representation of
perspective in painting. The Mona Lisa is
also an excellent example of his
research on human expression. The
play of shadows and the technique of
applying paint around the eyes and
mouths make this to this day one of
the most mysterious portraits in art
-suspended somewhere between a
sense of happiness and melancholy-.
This is the famous "Mona Lisa smile"!
And finally, did you know that the
Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre in 1911?
Obviously, it was a theft that
exploded the portrait popularity.
It's said that it was stolen
by an Italian glazier who had
participated in its reframing shortly
before its disappearance. For nearly
two years, it remains untraceable
despite generous reward offer
and a large-scale police
investigation. During the investigation,
the painter Picasso was even suspected
and the poet Apollinaire was wrongly locked up.
Fortunately in 1913, the work
was identified in Italy by an antique
dealer and returned to the Louvre with
great fanfare -with increased surveillance-.
Since 2005, to further protect
the work, the Mona Lisa sits in the center of a
new room specially fitted out
to receive it. It's also insulated
in a box which protects it from
vibrations and variations in
temperature or humidity.
We can also see this new
museum device very well in the music video
by Beyoncé and Jay-Z shot at the Louvre.
Probably the most famous work in
the world
today, the Mona Lisa is visited and
photographed by around twenty thousand
people every day. It's even estimated
that half of the visitors to the
Louvre would only come there to see the
mythical painting. Briefly, we can say
a big thanks to Mr Jacques Jaujard
for having hidden the Mona Lisa in 1939!
It's over for today. I hope
you liked it. If so, you know what
to do: linking, sharing
commenting, bring the video to live.
I'm Laurent Turcot from History
will tell us and I'll see you the next!
Bye!