30 September 2026 — 15 February 2027

Vija Celmins

The Musée de l’Orangerie’s contemporary counterpoint this season is devoted to Vija Celmins, whose work since the late 1960s has focused with extraordinary precision on surfaces: the ocean, the desert, the night sky and snow. Celmins describes these as “impossible images” – pictures without any spatial points of reference, which immerse the viewer in a sense of infinity. Made between 1971 and 2000, the works on view span a range of techniques, including drawing, painting, printmaking and wood engraving, and play on the tension between flatness and illusion. Installed in the museum’s pronaos and contemporary gallery, they enter into dialogue with Claude Monet’s Water Lilies (Nymphéas), encouraging a slow, attentive way of looking.

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Guide

What Is Value in Art?

Tonal value is the light-to-dark scale in a picture: how it works, six museum examples, and how to read it by squinting.

In studio language, value is how light or dark a patch of colour is, independent of hue. This guide sets out the value scale, grisaille and tenebrism, Ad Reinhardt’s blacks, photographic greyscale, the squint test, and the mix-up with saturation. Price uses the same English word and is out of scope.

Musée de l'Orangerie