Embark on a captivating journey through the timeless masterpieces of renowned Dutch painters in an innovative digital exhibition at the Bassins des Lumières.
From February 16, 2024, to January 5, 2025, immerse yourself in the brilliance of Vermeer, Rembrandt, and Van Gogh, where every brushstroke unveils the intricacies of daily life and the profound beauty of nature.
This digital exhibition presents the genius of the painters of the North through a complete immersion in authentic paintings that are faithful representations of nature and its themes. The monumental basins are the perfect setting for a daydream along the Flemish canals. You will explore the reality of daily life, following in the footsteps of the great masters who depicted the ordinary in an extraordinary way.
Painting light and atmosphere is the exhibition’s main theme.
Direct or subdued, cold or warm, the light reveals the facades and the privacy of family homes. You will set sail and berth your boats in Vermeer’s cities and stroll around in his world, whose inhabitants invite us to step into the canvas. Much like a filmmaker, Vermeer chose what to include in the frame and created a world suspended in time. His canvases are like synopses that open the doors to an almost Hitchcockian mystery, making you a part of the mise en scène.
A master of chiaroscuro, Rembrandt encourages introspection. Night falls in the heart of the cathedrals, immersing you in a spiritual atmosphere surrounded by biblical themes. An unrivalled portraitist who achieved a powerful realism, his Night Watch brings the procession of portraits to a climactic end. From Abraham Blommaert’s kingdom of the gods to Hendrick Avercamp’s expanses of ice, the seascapes by Hendrick Cornelisz Vroom and Jan Steen’s festive tavern scenes, the exhibition plunges us into the fascinating world of seventeenth-century Holland.
Van Gogh, a worthy successor to these seventeenth-century painters, takes us under the summer and night skies of the South of France. Using bright colours and imbuing his work with intense emotion, he sculpted the paint and sublimated the landscapes, self-portraits, and still lives. Like a final colourful bouquet, you are surrounded by nocturnal and dreamlike paintings that lose their way amidst the stars.
Bassins des Lumières
In 2020, Culturespaces opened the largest digital art centre in the world: the Bassins des Lumières. Located in Bordeaux’s former submarine base, the Bassins des Lumières present monumental immersive digital exhibitions devoted to the major artists in the history of art and contemporary art. The surface area of the submarine base is three times the size of that of the Carrières des Lumières in Les Baux-de-Provence and five times that of the Atelier des Lumières in Paris. The digital exhibitions are perfectly adapted to the monumental architecture of the submarine base and are reflected in the water of the four enormous basins, thereby adding a new dimension to the immersive experience. Visits are conducted on gangways above the water and along the quays of the enormous basins.
