Cathedral of Light 2022

Many a summer evening, come nightfall, Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Rouen is sensationally put in the spotlight via sound and light projections attracting visitors to and inhabitants of Normandy’s capital city. Rendez-vous on Place de la Cathédrale, the square in front of the great religious edifice, to be amazed by this stirring son et lumière show.

Rouen and its cathedral provided inspiration for many Impressionist painters, including the movement’s figurehead, Claude Monet. Between 1892 and 1893, he produced a series of virtuoso paintings focusing on the one theme, Rouen’s Notre-Dame Cathedral. Depicting the edifice from different angles and at different times of day, Monet captured on canvas the play of light and shadows that brings an ever-changing atmosphere to the great Gothic building’s façades.

This year, the “Cathedral of Light” show offers visitors a new and original creation, Rendez-vous avec la lumière ! (“A Rendez-vous with Light!”), a display forging links with the very essence of Impressionism – light. This new, interactive experience also encourages onlookers to participate in making a collective human work of art! Via a QR code, those watching can help bring new life to the cathedral by moving their smartphones about, even helping place a virtual candle on the façade. This “rendez-vous with light” also recalls the 150th anniversary of Impression, soleil levant (Impression, Sunrise), often cited as the Impressionist movement’s founding work, Monet’s piece playing on the early morning light across the port of Le Havre.