More than 1,000 people create live Impressionist painting
Some 1,250 people held enlarged fragments of a reproduction of a
Claude Monet masterpiece above their heads Saturday in a bid to create
the world’s biggest live Impressionist painting.
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1 250 people, each holding a piece of a reproduction of a
painting by Monet, gathered to form a gigantic living
impressionist painting in Rouen. AFP |
The creation of a 600-square-metre (6,450-square-feet) version of a
painting Monet made of Rouen’s landmark Gothic cathedral kicked off a
summer-long festival of Impressionist art.
Assembled in front of the city hall of Normandy’s historic capital,
the work dubbed “Monet vu du ciel” (Monet seen from the sky) was filmed
and photographed from a helicopter in order to make the next edition of
the Guinness Book of World Records. The reproduction is one from a
series of paintings the Impressionist master did of Rouen’s cathedral in
the 1890s. Eleven of his 30 cathedral canvases can be seen in a special
exhibit at the Rouen Fine Arts Museum, which opened Friday.
The volunteers for the live painting included the region’s top
Socialist politicians, former prime minister Laurent Fabius and Rouen
Mayor Valerie Fourneyron.
All participants hailed the group effort.
“I never take part in participatory things but finally here is
something good, something that brings citizens together and creates a
social event,” said a 46-year-old woman who gave her name as Caroline.
“For once we’ve done something collective in Rouen,” added another
participant, Jane, 34, who entered her name for the event when it was
announced on Facebook.
The Normandie-Impressionniste Festival runs through September
featuring more than 100 events including art exhibits, theatre,
concerts, films, sound and light shows, and picnics and promenades in
the footsteps of the artists who made Normandy the cradle of
Impressionism in the late 19th century.
AFP |
