From 23 June to 13 September , the Musée d'Orsay is hosting a sublime exhibition on the famous painter, James Tissot. The opportunity to visit this retrospective as well as this sublime museum all summer.
Who is James Tissot?
James Tissot, whose real name was Jacques Joseph Tissot, was born in Nantes in 1836. His father owned a fabric store and his mother was a milliner. His fascination for fabrics surely comes from this family atmosphere. Trained at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, he became friends with Edgar Degas and James Abbott McNeill Whistler. His career in France and England will make Monsieur Tissot a major artist of the second half of the nineteenth century. At the end of the 1850s, Tissot forged a reputation in Paris, he was passionate about Japanese art from which he drew inspiration for his paintings. His relationships with the most influential circles are also a source of inspiration. In the 1870s, he moved to London, where he continued to rub shoulders with social society. In 1875, Tissot met a divorced Irish woman, Kathleen Kelly, who married Newton. She will become his companion and will serve as his muse in many of his paintings. He paints it especially in the garden of his charming house or in his Japanese living room. This assumed link was however not conventional for the time. The fact that they did not marry was a shocking fact for much of Tissot's relationships. This young woman will live by his side until his death from tuberculosis, inKathleen's paintings reflect her declining health. At first radiant, she will then be represented with a whitish complexion and weakened in the end of her life. 
This tragedy will be the reason for Tissot's departure to Paris. After many trips to the United States, Jerusalem and Japan, he died in 1902.
A unique exhibition
The exhibition is entitled L'Ambigu moderne and that for a very specific reason. Ambiguous because, as Cyrille Sciama, director general of the Musée des Impressionnismes de Giverny, also curator of the exhibition, says:
"He is unclassifiable, he is impressionist and not impressionist, he is very close to Degas, but he refuses to exhibit with the impressionists."
A portrait of Tissot by Degas is also displayed at the beginning of the exhibition. Enough to put us immediately in the mood of the time. As for the second part of the title, Tissot is modern, he is a dandy. According to Paul Perrin, curator at the Musée d'Orsay and co-curator of the exhibition:
"He is modern because he understood that his images could be reproduced. The very style he adopts, very readable, very drawn, effective, will allow him to reproduce his paintings by photography, to disseminate them by engraving, by the book."
The exhibition at the Musée d'Orsay represents the first retrospective devoted entirely to Tissot since the 1985 one at the Petit-Palais. A wide selection of paintings is exhibited, including The Mediumistic Apparition. A work very dear to Tissot since it represents the vision he had during a session of spiritualism following the death of his tender Kathleen. It is said that he saw two forms appear, that of a man holding a source of light illuminating the second form, Kathleen Kelly. 
An exhibition to discover urgently at the Musée d'Orsay, from June 23 to September 13.
