While the chill still lingers in the morning air, spring is here in flower buds waiting to bloom and warm breezes in the afternoon sun.

Opera Gallery Seoul is celebrating the season with an exhibition of masterpieces by artists such as Marc Chagall, Pablo Picasso, Bernard Buffet, Salvador Dali, Raoul Dufy and Rene Magritte.

The exhibition “Le Sacre Du Printemps,” meaning the Rite of Spring, borrowed from the music of Stravinsky which premiered in Paris in 1913, features 70 artworks inspired by the dynamic energy of and fascination with the new life of spring. 

Chagall had been fascinated by the theme of flowers since the 1920s. The artist was first attracted by the charm of flowers in Toulon in 1924. The gouache painting “Bouquet aux Cerises” is a symbolic painting depicting himself with his beloved wife Bella. The recurring themes of flowers and fruit carry the meaning of life, growth and the cyclical nature of existence.

Rauol Dufy is a French Fauvist painter who developed colorful artwork defined by rhythmic brush strokes and a decorative painting style. Dufy’s “Vase d’Anemones” was painted in the painter’s later years, giving off spring’s warmth through his unique style.

Another flower painting by French painter Bernard Buffet offers contrast in colors and ambience between dull backgrounds and colorful flowers.

Among the artist’s religious pieces, landscapes, portraits and still-life paintings, flowers were the only theme through which Buffet expressed dynamism and life.

Rene Magritte’s sculpture “Les Menottes de Cuivre (Copper Handcuffs)” is one of the highlights of the exhibition as it is one of the representative pieces of Surrealism. The title was borrowed from Surrealist poet and critic Andre Breton who was asked to find the title that “for me will be the kind of surprise I like most.”

Breton said in a letter to Magritte dated April 8, 1936, “(The title) gives an additional color to the object, but not arbitrarily, since copper is the metal for responding to Venus.”

Another Venus de Milo-inspired sculpture by Salvador Dali is on display. The “Venus de Milo aux Tiroirs” combines the message of psychoanalysis of Sigmund Freud with the image of dreams.

The exhibition continues through April 28 at Opera Gallery in Dosan Boulevard, Gangnam-gu, Seoul.

For more information, call (02) 3447-0070.

By Lee Woo-young  (wylee@heraldcorp.com)