In the second half of the 19th century many artists left Paris and the North behind, attracted by the light of the South, setting up their easels between the Spanish border and the Italian Riviera. Their artistic personalities were revealed through the contact with seascapes portraying the Mediterranean coast which they depicted in a wide diversity of styles.

After a prologue devoted to Joseph Vernet, visitors to the show will be plunged in seven sequences into the universes of the Impressionists, with Monet and Renoir, the Pointillists, with Signac and Cross, the Fauves, with Camoin, Derain, Vlaminck, Friesz, Manguin, Marquet and Valtat, etc. not forgetting Matisse. They will also discover the palette of bright colours used by Bonnard and Dufy, ultimately coming to one of the most important colourists of modern art - Chagall. Fifteen or so artists and as many different ways of representing the Mediterranean and its extraordinary light.

Further improved technological systems for 2013

This new immersion into the history of art follows on from the Gauguin, Van Gogh, les peintres de la couleur, exhibition with which Culturespaces inaugurated the Carrières de Lumières in March 2012. Both mysterious and majestic, this venue destined to stage cultural events using digital display technology had 239,000 visitors in 2012.

In 2013, Culturespaces is reinforcing the technological equipment used in this venue, unique in its kind: video projectors and speakers have been added to cover a greater surface area and give greater depth to the experience. All in all, close to 100 video projectors have been planned to generate the movement of images over an area of more than 7,000 sq.m., including the floor.

To produce this ambitious show, Culturespaces has once again called upon the talent and expertise of Gianfranco Iannuzzi, Massimiliano Siccardi and Renato Gatto. Together they have designed tailor-made son et lumière shows, adapted to the extraordinary particularities and dimensions of the quarries, with walls up to 14 metres high. They work from thousands of images, broken down and reassembled to generate movement. In this way, they relate the stories of Monet, Renoir... Chagall. Voyages en Méditerranée, based on a scenario travelling along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, meeting with the great painters of modern art fascinated by these places.