Digitalarti Mag's blog

How can a simple movement of a camera enhance the power of light in a Monet, the texture of paint used by Vincent Van Gogh? How does it reveal a detail in a Veronese, the symbolism of a disguised vanity from Hans Holbein, or the significance of a perspective drawn by Leonardo da Vinci? Forty paintings from masters of the 16th Century to the 21st have been digitized to illustrate the technical breakthroughs of their respective eras.

That is not the only challenge of the premiere exhibition of its kind, which took place from September 18 to October 17 at the Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux Arts de la Ville de Paris: The idea came from those who shared the will and vision to invite newcomers to the museum to explore the language of Art. The exhibition of digital videos was designed as a real journey, where each of the forty works tells its own story but also leads the visitor to rediscover painting through the seven themes structuring the event: materials, perspectives, shadow, light, drawing, emotion and color — the fundamentals of a history of art which is still being written.

The objective is to give the uninitiated visitor the tools to appreciate the original paintings and read them with a new eye, said the curator of the exhibition, Charles Villeneuve de Janti. The digital era now provides the opportunity to bring such masterpieces together virtually, thus embracing the concept of Malraux's imaginary museum. Those paintings were brought together in a digital pantheon that goes far beyond the confines of the Petit Palais, which only owns five of the original works.

Behind the screens
The project was made possible with the technology of 7-millimeter thick high-definition screens donated by Samsung Electronics France, along with its full financial contribution, to produce the 40 films and exhibit them within an original and elegant scenography.

Since the first meeting, arranged six months ago by Henry Conseil Event Agency between the Korean electronics giant, the executive producer Dominique Playoust (Pixo facto) and the board of the Petit Palais, different teams of digiratis, directors, and composers have been working together or separately, driven by the synopsis of film director Pierre Oscar Levy (winner of a Cannes Palme d'Or for his documentary on Picasso) and art historian Luis Belhaouari.

The brief of the exercise was to reveal the technical mastery or the details of a painting in a manner that is neither academic nor purely scientific, says Dominique Playoust. Moreover, the visitor should be able to enter the history of the masterpiece at anytime and catch the loop in the continuum of his visit.

Playoust is also the co-founder of Pecha Kucha events, in which designers from all over the world have only 6 minutes to present their work.

As a matter of fact no commentary has been added to the films, but atmospheric sounds and original musics were composed for each of them — mostly written by artistic director and composer Jean-Jacques Birgé — sometimes using old acoustic instruments inspired by the epoch and environment of the subject to enhance immersion in the painting. Unfortunately, only seven animated works enjoy the privacy of an alcove to let their soundtrack be displayed during the exhibition.

Pixels in heritage
Among a selection of world's masterpiece, made by the curator, Villeuneuve de Janti, twenty three films were post-produced by Snarx and seveteen by Laforme within three months. Both studios worked on the basis of high definition echtachromes lended by the RMN (Réunion des Musées Nationaux) and other museums taking part in the adventure. Some files had to be upgraded or re-digitized to allow a powerful zoom whitin a detail in an infinite travelling sequence into the painting. Two stereoscopic films were even produced to take viewers into the very heart of the images.

"It's amazing to see how two teams from a different culture approached the project, said Domnique Playoust." Laforme founded in 2001 by aficionados of patrimonial projects who signed Le Louvre or Orsay on DVD and recently disclosed Lascaux on the web, organized its work as a newmedia studio working with After effect freelances or inhouse graphic designers. While Snarx involved into 3D animation work and post production for TV and film, since the early ninghties relied on director' s competences of Pierre Oscar Levy to work in team with its digital animators and SFX (special effects) masters on Flame and Maya softwares.

We surely did not want to denaturate the paintings but we did introduced some CG (computer graphics effects) wich brought their part of emotion in a spectacular way, admits founder of Snarx, Jean-Christophe Bernard. In "L'enfant au toton" from Chardin, for instance we introduced a 3D animated sequence of the top hold by the young marquis. This perpetual movement of the rotating toy facing the youth of the boy definitely increases the meaning of the painting and procures a real emotion to the visitors. In another artpiece, "Les ambassadeurs"(Ambassadors) from Hans Holbein, 3D is used to reveal the anamophorsis of a skull and the apparition of a christ which we could only see from a certain point of view: by sticking an eye against the oil painting. Thus discovering that we were actually facing a vanity!

The unexpected values of reproduction
The title of the event refers to human curiosity, that inspires mankind to constantly discover new territories. I wanted to pay tribute to figures from our national or local history, who built our heritage brick by brick, a combination of volition, courage, creativity and individual commitment, says curator of the exhibition, Charles Villeneuve de Janti.

Such a huge and challenging project had never been seen in a museum before, but it is not the first time that a painting pops out of its frame to be analysed, or dissected by the critical eye of a camera. The TV serie Palettes from Alain Jaubert broadcasted on Arte TV has now collected more than fifty paintings of a worldwide heritage. And we do remember the emotion in the room when computer artist Eve Ramboz presented at Imagina (Monaco 1991) her 13' mn animation film from Hieronymus Bosh's masterpiece, L'escamoteur, also called the prestidigitator or the magician. On the next year, a 3D animated sculpture of Jean Arp by Cécile Babiole, was rewarded in Monaco and Linz (Ars Electronica festival) as best museum creation, part of a serie called "L'art en jeu", edited by center Pompidou (Pandora production).

The awareness of our heritage, the consciousness of its value necessarily increases the production of reproductions, says the curator, who reminds us that the greek statues which were originally made out of bronze seem so familiar today thanks to their marble copies, made during the Roman Empire!

Since Antiquity the reproduction of artwork not only permitted to spread and reinforce the notion of a shared knowledge, and the preservation of a know-how, but it also boosted technological breakthroughs as it became an industry. Let 's see how the advent of photography not only changed the diffusion of an art culture among a larger public but how did it modify the way painters used to work.

It is interesting to question the paradoxical relationship between the original and the copy. How the multiplication of reproductions can denature the essence of an artwork and stimulate at the same time the development of a fascination for it. But while artworks seem to be more and more accesssible by the means of reproduction, on the other hand, they trend towards a dematerialization leading to a "gaseous state" as suggests philosopher Yves Michaux.

Will this installation, open the doors of patrimonial collections, to actual virtual contemporary art, before it vanishes into the air?

BY VÉRONIQUE GODÉ

Published in the Digitalarti Mag #4.

Digitalarti Mag, the international digital art and innovation magazine.

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