Instead of travelling half a day to Paris to appreciate the world’s finest collection of modern art, Singaporeans can now view over 140 Salon, Realist, Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works from the greatest painters in the likes of Gustave Courbet, Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas and many more at the National Museum of Singapore.

Titled Dreams & Reality: Masterpieces of Painting, Drawing & Photography of the Musée d’Orsay, Paris, the exhibition will enthrall visitors from 26 October 2011 to 5 February 2012, following a similar show at the Seoul Arts Centre in Korea. This rare opportunity for the art works to travel out of the Musée d’Orsay is possible only because the museum is undergoing renovation works of its galleries.

Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh

Director of the National Museum of Singapore, Ms Lee Chor Lin, says, “This exhibition is the fruition of the Memorandum of Understanding on Museum Cooperation between France and Singapore. Through this partnership with the Musée d’Orsay, we hope to enhance the cultural ties and the museum professionals between our two countries.”

At the turn of the century from 1848 to 1914, with the advent of the Industrial Revolution in Europe, a rapidly urbanising social and economic landscape in Europe compelled Man to react towards modernity.

The arts particularly grew in prominence as artists were confronted by a whole new world of ideas, possibilities and influences.

Some chose to pursue their desire to capture contemporary subjects; others who were anguished and disorientated by the onslaught of massive change, sought refuge in their dreams and imagination founded on mythologies, legends and ancient civilisations.

Their varied response generated new ways of depicting reality and a proliferation of artistic styles, redefining their own identities amidst the radical transformations taking place around them.

This exhibition is divided into four main sections: Allegory and History, Man and Contemporary Life, Man and Nature and Solitude. For more details, click here.

* Main picture: The Card Players by Paul Cézanne