The Impressionists and Photography

More than 100 photographs and over 30 oil paintings make up this exhibition that looks at the relationship between Impressionist painting and photography. From the first daguerreotypes to the earliest prints on paper, photography soon intrigued the Impressionists because of its technical qualities. Monet, Pissarro and Degas showed interest in photography as a source of inspiration: light and space were trapped in the photos, so they could review the scene over and over again, without having to paint in a hurry, as when they worked outdoors. The exhibition is organised around nine blocks in which artists and photographers found points in common when creating, whether they were iconographic, technical or compositional: the forest, figures in the landscape, water, in the countryside, monuments, the city, portraits, the body and archives.