Charles Chaplin is a name that inevitably brings to one’s imagination silent-era movies like The Kid or The Gold Rush, or even early sound-carrying classics such as The Great Dictator or Modern Times.

But visiting the ongoing art exhibition entitled The Theatre of Emotions at the Marmottan Monet Museum in Paris, you discover that the same name also belonged to a French painter who was born in the first quarter of the 19th century, and who continued creating his works of art until his death in Paris in 1891, at the age of 67.

In his works, Charles Chaplin — the painter — inevitably concentrated on the expressions on the faces of his subjects. His work The Dream, painted in1857, is fairly strongly representative of this artistic obsession. Another similar piece is Letter from Wagram, painted by Claude-Marie Dubufe in 1828, in which the emotions on the tearful face of a woman are so strongly accentuated that it has also become the poster of the exhibition pasted all over the main points of the city.

But then there are more than 80 other paintings, sculptures and sketches in the show, some dating as far back as the 14th century, and many being contemporary works by artists focusing on the same theme. These unusual creations belong to private collections as well as to a number of other museums all over the world.

In an unusual exhibition, the Marmottan Monet Museum in Paris focuses on the diversity of facial emotions in art

It is a touching experience to watch the men and women in these works representing intense reactions of joy, sadness or terror — explored, reflected over then transferred to their creations by these artists in a multitude of ways. Though we lack here the space to analyse all of them one by one, the example of a large canvas, Thirty-five Expressions, painted by the French artist Louis Boilly in 1825, is certainly fairly representative of the theme of the exhibition that concentrates on emotions on the faces.

The exhibition does not fail to underline the point that, with times changing, people do not necessarily always react to emotional experiences with the same facial expressions and that these could vary with the passing of years. Many of Pablo Picasso’s paintings present at the show repeatedly stress on this emotional revolution and changed reactions on the faces of the people as time keeps going by. Another example is the early 20th-century Russian painter Alexej von Jawlenski, a number of whose self-portraits carry a frightened look.

Asked why this unusual theme was adopted for the exhibition, one of the organisers said, “Art enthusiasts have always been attracted by beautiful landscapes, impressive forests, lakes or mountains. We decided that the feelings of anger, fear, sadness, joy, excitement or confusion have also been present on the faces of the people shown through centuries in the works by great artists. Carried away by the magnificence of the scenes under sunlight, under a full moon or under thundering clouds, onlookers often tend to ignore this inevitable point.

“We decided that such paintings as well as sculptures represent not just the scenes with impressive backgrounds but also the multiple details of the human soul itself. Of course, great, legendary authors have always described the emotions of the people in their writings, but the artists also are not left far behind in this adventure. Of course, it was not easy to bring together these masterpieces from museums as well as from private collections all over the world, but it’s up to you to decide if we succeeded!”

Well said.

The Theatre of Emotions is on display at the Marmottan Monet Museum in Paris until August 21, 2022
The writer is an art critic based in Paris.
He may he reached at zafmasud@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, EOS, June 5th, 2022