Hubert’s Plate
People nick-named it « Robert the Ruins », but Hubert Robert never had a noble title – he was the son of an intendant. His patronym without particle saved his bacon but the story is told later, during the visit. Starting off from a plate painted in prison and entitled The Waterfall, and visible at the Museum of Valencia, the visit unfurls during an audio-guided walk, from the exterior garden with an 18th century landscape and passing through the gallery of naturalised animals : an anachronistic wandering in the real or imagined vestiges of a time gone by – dead animals, falsely antique ruins, painted landscapes where calm or furious waters, where lascivious bodies are abandoned to the magnitude of that which surrounds them. A past which comes back to give us a sign thanks to images and accounts that we can produce.
Cover Photo: © Musée de Valence photo Béatrice Roussel
