Today, we visited the Mahmoud Khalil Museum with its collection of impressionist paintings, 19th-century European art, and Asian artifacts. Dina had visited it many times since childhood while it was the first time for me.
The museum’s ambiance, which was originally the home of Mahmoud Khalil and his wife, reminded me of the Musée d'Orsay in Paris, which houses many of the same impressionist masters collected by Mahmoud Khalil. While the Musée d'Orsay presents these works in an abandoned train station, the Mahmoud Khalil Museum offers a more intimate, domestic experience, giving me a fresh perspective on 19th-century European art.
The visit also brought to mind my great-uncle, Antonin Personnaz, who, while primarily known as a collector of impressionist paintings (and has a room in his name at Orsay), was also an early photographer experimenting with autochromes. This is maybe why I have always been fascinated by both impressionist painting and early color photography in which both mediums rely on capturing light, whether through the brushstroke or the autochrome plate.
Seeing impressionist paintings alongside Asian artifacts and considering them in relation to early photography prompted us to reflect on the flatness of asian art in relationship to photography.
One thought lingered with us long after we left: could my great-uncle Antonin have known Mahmoud Khalil and his French wife, Émilienne Luce? Their circles in the French art world surely overlapped, and it's not impossible that their paths once crossed. Oh how small the world is; as Dina keeps saying while in Cairo.
