The Atelier des Lumières’ newest manufacturing, “Renaissance: Da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo”, runs from March thirteenth to June twenty eighth. I attended the press opening, and given how broadly really helpful this venue is, I feel it’s price taking a more in-depth take a look at the precise expertise, and asking a query that doesn’t come up typically sufficient: what does it imply to decide on this over the extraordinary public establishments that encompass it?
As a result of that is Paris. And that modifications issues.
The Greater Query
In most cities, a venue that tasks large-scale reproductions of well-known artworks throughout the partitions, flooring, and ceilings of a former industrial constructing — combining animation, music, and narration into an immersive visible expertise — could be a genuinely thrilling cultural providing. For audiences with out quick access to main museums, this format makes actual sense.
However in Paris, it feels barely ironic to return right here to have a look at digital reproductions.
The argument is commonly made that experiences like it will encourage individuals to go additional, to go to museums, to be taught extra. Maybe. However human conduct suggests in any other case. Most of us know the distinction between intending to interact extra deeply and truly doing it. It’s the identical cause we attain for our telephones within the morning as a substitute of a guide.
If individuals change into accustomed to artwork that strikes, with a soundtrack, enhanced by fog and lighting results, then conventional museums — the place you’re anticipated to decelerate and look — danger feeling comparatively flat. And which may be essentially the most troubling shift of all.
This isn’t tradition within the sense of one thing you actively interact with. It’s nearer to consumption. The pacing, the choice, the interpretation: all the things is set for you. It’s not so completely different from scrolling by way of pictures in your cellphone, besides another person is doing the scrolling.
It’s price being aware of that selection — somewhat than defaulting to one thing as a result of it’s widespread — particularly in a metropolis the place the options are so wealthy.
The Idea, the Promise
The Atelier des Lumières, which calls itself a digital cultural heart, is a part of a rising personal community of comparable venues throughout France and internationally. The reveals concentrate on broadly recognizable names and crowd-pleasing themes: Van Gogh, Picasso, Klimt, Le Petit Prince, Monet, Dalí, Cézanne, Historic Egypt… and now the Renaissance masters: Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, and Michelangelo.
Guests transfer freely by way of the house because the 52-minute program performs on a steady loop, or can merely sit on the ground and take within the environment.
Of their promotional movies, you’ll see a handful of tourists strolling by way of the house because the present unfolds, wide-eyed in amazement. Don’t get too excited: you’ll by no means see it this empty.
I’ve been a number of instances for the reason that venue first opened in 2018, and I’ve hesitated to jot down about it. It’s clearly a crowd-pleaser, and lots of of you have got loved your visits. However it’s price understanding what you’re really paying for, and what you’re finally supporting.
Museums in France are largely backed to make sure they’re accessible to everybody. Youngsters go to without spending a dime. Ticket costs are regulated. The mission shouldn’t be revenue, however preservation, schooling, and public entry. When museums purchase artworks, they change into a part of public collections. The Atelier des Lumières operates very in another way, and that’s not inherently an issue, however it’s helpful to know earlier than you determine easy methods to spend your money and time in Paris.
The Actuality of the Expertise
Let’s undergo the precise expertise.
First, there’s the worth. Tickets value €19.50 to €23.50 for adults (one euro much less for seniors over 65), €17.50 to €21.50 for college kids 12-25, and €12.50 to €16.50 for teenagers 3-11 (increased costs apply for afternoon visits). No museum passes accepted. I’m pretty sure no Paris museum fees entrance for younger youngsters, not to mention €16.50 for a three-year-old.
On arrival, there’s no coat verify or lockers, so that you carry all the things inside; however strollers and enormous luggage aren’t allowed. There’s, nevertheless, a counter the place you should buy potato chips and sweet in your method in, much like a film theatre. Hardly superb for an “immersive” cultural expertise.
Time slots are maximized to maintain the gang flowing, to not correspond with the beginning or finish of the present. So that you may arrive at any level within the loop, which makes for a barely disorienting expertise. The setting itself — a former industrial foundry, now an empty concrete warehouse with excessive ceilings and steel pillars — is commonly performed up as a part of the enchantment. However in Paris, repurposed historic buildings are too widespread to be outstanding. Evaluate this to Culturespaces’ different venues: the Carrières des Lumières in Provence, set inside an enormous limestone quarry the place projections unfold throughout cavernous rock formations; or the Bassins des Lumières in Bordeaux, housed in a former WWII submarine base the place pictures mirror throughout giant swimming pools of water. In these circumstances, the setting genuinely enhances the expertise. Right here, it feels prefer it might be the within of any random warehouse.
The group itself is a part of the expertise too, and never at all times pleasantly. Phrase has unfold that it is a place the place children can run round freely, and that’s typically precisely what they do. There’s additionally fixed motion amongst adults repositioning for the perfect images or higher views. It’s not the serene, contemplative setting proven in promotional pictures. however somewhat extra like what I photographed throughout my go to to the Van Gogh themed manufacturing in 2019:
There are just a few seats scattered all through, so those that don’t wish to stand find yourself sitting on the laborious ground, in opposition to partitions, or alongside the staircase to the mezzanine. A reclined, IMAX cinema-style format could be extra comfy, however would scale back how many individuals they might cram in at any given time.
The Present Itself: What Works, What Doesn’t
Right here’s a video I made to present you a way of the house and a few highlights from the present Renaissance present. It was filmed throughout the press go to, so the gang is far smaller than you’ll expertise, there are not any youngsters, and sure, there was a waiter with espressos and croissants. 😉
Previous reveals on the Atelier des Lumières have been elaborate montages of artworks set to music, with no explicit storyline. For Renaissance, they’ve launched a French actor studying texts by one of many earliest artwork critics of the Renaissance period, narrating in a dramatic voice (which, for a Disneyland fan like myself, is paying homage to the Haunted Mansion). Sadly, the concrete and steel environment have an effect on the sound high quality significantly, like metro bulletins. They’ve added captions excessive on the partitions in French (white) and English (yellow), however if you wish to comply with alongside, you’ll be able to’t actually wander on the identical time. A easy resolution — headphones with a language selection, as used on the Catacombes or the Hôtel de la Marine — would have served the “immersive” idea much better.
The music is essentially classical and becoming for the interval, with one notable exception: because the Mona Lisa seems throughout the Da Vinci section, a latest Billie Eilish music performs. The creators are pleased with this nod to up to date tradition. To me it felt gimmicky and misplaced (particularly since I already affiliate this music with a tragic music video of her crying). Equally, the addition of lasers, strobe lights, and a fog machine — additionally new for this manufacturing — really feel extra suited to a nightclub than to Raphael. Does Michelangelo want flashing lights and fog to impress? I’d say no.
What genuinely does work is the artwork itself, however that’s a given, since these are timeless masterpieces.
A few of the videomapping sequences are significantly efficient, particularly when projections recreate architectural areas like a Renaissance palace overlooking Florence or the Vatican galleries. The Michelangelo sculpture section is placing, providing angles and proximity you’d by no means expertise in individual. Different moments really feel much less convincing, particularly when the artwork is closely animated into sequences — floating cherubs, drifting clouds — that really feel nearer to the AI movies flooding TikTok.
You Are Watching a Sequence, Not Exploring a Assortment
That is the center of my discomfort with the format, and the Atelier des Lumières at its clearest.
Photographs seem and disappear in a choreographed style. If one thing catches your consideration, you’ll be able to’t pause, linger, or return to it. In a museum, you’ll be able to stand in entrance of a single paintings for so long as you need; many galleries even present benches for that function. Right here, the pacing, the choice, the interpretation are all determined for you.
With every superbly introduced portray, sculpture, or fresco, I needed to know extra: What’s it known as? What’s the story behind it? The place may I see it in individual? There’s a mezzanine with some Wikipedia-style biographical textual content in regards to the artists, however it’s the one house with no projections, so there’s by no means anybody up there.
The reveals could be considerably improved by a easy downloadable booklet (a QR code would match the digital theme) with particulars of each paintings proven, and – most significantly – the place you’ll be able to see the originals in individual. Because it stands, the expertise stops in need of guiding you additional. There’s no indication of the place to seek out the true works, no connection to the establishments that protect them.
So, Is It Price It?
The purpose isn’t to let you know what to get pleasure from. Sure, not everybody desires to go to museums, and for some guests this serves as a real introduction to a few of the world’s best artists.
However in the event you’re deciding easy methods to spend restricted time or a restricted finances in Paris, it’s price making {that a} aware selection, somewhat than defaulting to what’s widespread. The Atelier des Lumières is entertaining. It’s visually spectacular. And it’s passive. Another person is doing the scrolling.
In a metropolis the place the true issues exist, that’s price pausing over.
The place to See the Authentic Renaissance Masters in Paris
If the present has sparked your curiosity, the excellent news is that the Louvre holds an distinctive assortment throughout all three artists.
A number of of Michelangelo’s statues and drawings are within the everlasting assortment, within the aptly named Michelangelo Gallery, together with the magnificent Dying Slave and Rebellious Slave. And in the event you’d wish to go deeper, the museum is at present internet hosting “Michelangelo and Rodin: Residing Our bodies” by way of July twentieth, which pairs his work with Rodin’s in an exploration of how each artists sought to seize the physique’s inside vitality.
Raphael can be nicely represented on the Louvre, with a number of work in room 710 of the Denon wing, together with La Belle Jardinière, Le Grand Saint Michel, and the Portrait of Baldassare Castiglione, thought-about one of many nice portraits of the Renaissance (on mortgage to the Met in New York by way of June 28th, 2026). His most well-known portray, The Three Graces, is a special story: it belongs to the Musée Condé on the Château de Chantilly, simply 45 minutes north of Paris, which has a strict coverage in opposition to lending its works. If you wish to see it, I extremely encourage you to make the journey (listed here are some tips about getting there by practice).
As for Da Vinci, you’ll discover the Mona Lisa on the Louvre, after all, together with La Belle Ferronnière, Saint John the Baptist, The Virgin of the Rocks, and La Sainte Anne. Honest warning: the crowds in entrance of the Mona Lisa are each bit as dense as something you’d encounter to see the digital model on the Atelier des Lumières.
For an actual artwork lover’s journey, Elaine Sciolino’s new guide Adventures within the Louvre reveals that you could request to see drawings and sketches by Renaissance masters within the museum’s little-known Session Room for Prints and Drawings. It’s the type of expertise that no immersive present may replicate.
As a closing, barely surprising possibility, you can even spot casts of Michelangelo’s Dying Slave on the façade of a police station within the twelfth arrondissement, seen from the Promenade Plantée (on the intersection of Avenue Daumesnil and Rue de Rambouillet). They’re straightforward to overlook, however a reminder that in Paris, even a stroll can carry you face-to-face with Renaissance sculpture.
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