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The Atelier des Lumières

The first digital art centre in Paris, established in a former nineteenth-century foundry that has been entirely restored, the Atelier des Lumières holds monumental digital exhibitions that immerse you in the pictorial world of the greatest artists. Thanks to very large-format projections that cover the floor and the ceiling in high definition, the visitors are right ‘inside’ the work, and are transported by a sensorial, musical, and aesthetic experience...

The new digital exhibition immerses visitors in the paintings of Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890)

Projected on all the surface of the Atelier, this new visual and musical production retraces the intense life of the artist, who, during the last ten years of his life, painted more than 2,000 pictures, which are now in collections around the world. The exhibition explores van Gogh’s numerous works, which radically evolved over the years, from The Potato Eaters (1885), Sunflowers (1888) and Starry Night (1889) to Bedroom at Arles (1889). The Atelier des Lumières highlights the Dutch painter’s expressive and powerful brushstrokes and is illuminated by the bold colours of his unique paintings. Warm hues give way to sombre colours. The exhibition evokes Van Gogh’s highly emotional, chaotic, and poetic inner world and highlights the constant interplay of light and shade.

A thematic itinerary

The projection retraces his sojourns in Neunen, Arles, Paris, Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, and Auvers-sur-Oise. It begins with the artist’s palette, with its dense and thickly applied colours, with its highly visible and decisive brushtrokes...

The sunny Provence

The first sequence is set in the heart of Provence, from the Alpilles to Saint-Rémy. Here, the colourful skies of Provence inundate the exhibition space, and wheat fields are set ablaze at sunset. ‘The Sunflowers’, a series of seven still lifes painted in Arles in 1888, will entirely cover the walls of the halle: the flowers will be brought to life and regain their radiance! The golden colours will gradually be transformed into colourful flowerpots and intense violet-blue iris fields. The seasons will come and go in this field of flowers, where the vivid Blossoming Almond Tree will softly appear.

Paris

The exhibition takes a look at van Gogh’s period in Paris. There, he preferred to paint more rural scenes, from Asnières to Montmartre, than urban ones. The Moulin de la Galette became one of the favourite subjects of the artist! van Gogh’s palette became lighter in Paris, influenced by the Impressionists, Symbolists, Pointillists, and Japanese art.

Arles

Arles enabled the artist to fully develop the treatment of light in his paintings. This section will present the most famous paintings from his Arles period: cafe terraces, the Place du Forum, cafes at night, his yellow house, and his bedroom. The night scene of "Cafe Terrace at Night" (1888) will emerge on the walls. The forms and the colours in shades of yellow evoke the perception of van Gogh, who influenced by Impressionist painting, sought to go beyond it. Invited to enter the cafe, visitors will discover mysterious characters drinking absinthe, illuminated by oil lamps.

Cypresses and starry skies

The sublime and ominous atmosphere is found in the work Starry Night (1889), which he painted from his window in the Saint-Paul asylum... There is a mysterious sinuous black cypress in the picture. Cypresses are recurrent motifs in the artist’s oeuvre. Van Gogh’s instantly recognizable starry sky will fill the space with various shades of blue. The sky, rendered with spiraling brushstrokes, reflects the tormented state of the painter.

The Plaine d'Auvers

The show ends with a complete immersion in Van Gogh’s major landscapes, followed by the emergence of a stormy sky and rainfall, which becomes increasingly heavy. Wheat Field with Crows (1890), one of the artist’s last works, shows an ominous sky that contrasts sharply with the golden hues of the wheat field.

Epilogue

The painter’s self-portraits reappear in the sky, in the middle of blossoming almond trees. It is a message that symbolises the rebirth and the continuous and timeless renewal of art.