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Artists glorify the red; Courbet, Degas, Renoir and Pre-Raphaelite painters have often represented red figures in their paintings. Writers such as Zola, Bau- delaire, Maupassant or Verlaine with her «Princess Rhoukin» have written on her scrolls of flames that adorn their heroines with a halo of poisonous and hypnotic mystery.
This tint of setting sun inflamed the brushes of Jean-Jacques Henner (1829-1905) to adorn the forehead of the deceased Christ.
His canvas «Idyll» is his first portrait of a redhead whose naked skin with milky transparency is magnified by the orange of her hairstyle.
Since this first work, Jean-Jacques Henner will make his painting a hymn to this mesmerizing hue.
He thus paints the figures of classical mythology only adorned with their long incendiary wicks in languid and sensual poses.
An amazing staging, the museum exposes alongside these academic paintings masks of Papua and New Guinea whose red crests are the proud attributes of power.
Jean-Jacques Henner Countess Kessler, about 1886 Oil on canvas, 109 × 69.5 cm
© RMN-Grand Palais / Franck Raux