Les archives du rêve. Dessins du musée d’Orsay : carte blanche à Werner Spies

We spontaneously associate the musée d’Orsay with paintings by Courbet, Monet or Van Gogh? But rarely do we think of drawings. And yet the museum has a true treasure with some 80 000 drawings, of which a large part is kept at the Louvre. In order to keep this fund alive in an original manner, art historian Werner Spies made a subjective selection and then asked artists, writers and movie directors to each express themselves on one work of art. David Lynch dissects through calligraphy the mysterious atmosphere of Degouve de Nuncques, Yasmina Reza speaks of the Madrilène de dos by Henri Regnault, Valérie Belin presents a photograph of a study of hats by Boudin (one of the artist’s 7555 drawings!). Anish Kapoor reviews Diable by Redon. This original exercise brings together famous and less famous names (Degas, Manet, Bresdin, Rassenfosse, Fortuny) and delivers interesting contributions even some iconoclast ones. “It is actually surprising that often painter are asked to write and rarely are writers asked to paint, even though painting existed way before writing!” François Morellet wrote.

• Les archives du rêve. Dessins du musée d’Orsay : carte blanche à Werner Spies, Musées d’Orsay et de l’Orangerie/Hazan, 2014, 432 p., €49.90.