In 1975, Albert Plécy visited the Val d'Enfer's (Hell Valley) impressive limestone quarries in Les Baux de Provence. Captivated by the area's beauty, he decided to use it to show the results of his research on Image Totale (Total Image).
This long-standing experiment on the use and the effect takes the visitor to the very heart of a universe of images.
With the first programme, "Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry" (The Rich Hours of the Duke of Berry), CATHEDRALE D'IMAGES lit up after years of research on the art of photography brought about by Gens d'Images (People of Images), the association founded by Albert Plécy.
Over the years many of them have come to see an ever-changing show and to feel the almost-religious peacefulness of the cool galleries tinged by colourful frescoes.
Anne Plécy, Albert Plécy's wife, took over his work when he died suddenly in 1977. She ran CATHEDRALE D'IMAGES until 2001. Since then, Timothée Polad, the founders' grandson, is perpetuating the vision of this unique setting. | 
"Ce n'est pas Cathédrale d'Images qui s'adapte à l'image, c'est à l'image de s'adapter à ce lieu".
Anne PLECY
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Albert Plécy, the founder ...
For a better understanding of CATHEDRALE D'IMAGES, it is worth looking at certain aspects of the life of its founder, that wise pioneer, guided by his passion for and his understanding of photography.
As journalist and war correspondent during WWII's Italian campaign, Albert Plécy became aware of the power of an image, a witness to the ugliness of war. On his return to civilian life, he used his experience to promote the use of images in the press as a journalist, and then as Editor in Chief at the Parisien Libéré. From 1954 onwards, he ran the weekly column, "Salon Permanent de la Photo" (Permanent Photography Show), in Point de Vue, Images du Monde magazine, until his death. In 1955, wanting to create an exchange of ideas and encourage innovation in photography, he fathered the association Gens d'Images.
This association still perpetuates real thought on images today. Many conferences are organised and Gens d'Images encourages photography enthusiasts by awarding two prizes each year. The "Niepce Prize" was created to help young photographers to become professionals and the "Nadar Prize" rewards the year's best book of photos.
Albert Plécy is also the author of La Grammaire Elémentaire de l'Image (An Elementary Grammar of Image) (Estienne, 1962). A reference book for all photographers, it crystallises the uses and possible applications of photography, identifying existing symbols, themes and styles. It also suggests a more thorough look into the use of computing in photocomposition and representation, as well as the development of new mediums adapted to all types of images.
The creation of Gens d'Images and La Grammaire Elémentaire de l'Image, with its well informed, pioneering appeal, show how far-reaching Albert Plécy's vision was. Aware of the importance of the juxtaposition of images and symbols, he wanted to take photos out of their restrictive medium and give them a new dimension and greater meaning.
When Joseph Svoboda presented "Mur d'Images" (Wall of Images), a multi-screen show in Montreal in 1965, Albert Plécy saw the possibility of creating a new concept in this disintegration and liberation of images: the integration of the spectator. This is the concept behind Image Totale.
Thus, Albert Plécy and Gens d'Images tried to find ways of accomplishing the theory behind Image Totale. A 300-m2 screen was used with 60 projectors in a 15-hour uninterrupted production at the theatre of l'Ouest Parisien (West Parisian) in 1969. At the Thoiry zoo in 1970, "Bestiary 2000" presented the works of the Musée de la Chasse (Hunting Museum) and Musée d'Histoire Naturelle (Natural History Museum) on 60 screens. At the Féeries des Tuileries (The Wonders of the Tuileries), the programmes, "La Prodigieuse Histoire des Tuileries" (The Wonderful History of the Tuileries) and "La Belle Epoque des Impressionnistes" (The Belle Epoque of the Impressionists), used huge screens, enlarging some of the treasures of the Bibliothèque Nationale (National Library) by a 100. All that remained was to find a place where an Image Totale(c) programme could fully express itself.
In September 1975, Albert Plécy decided that such a place would be CATHEDRALE D'IMAGES, a "centre of artistic creation and research". In his own terms, "a hive in which Gens d'Images swarm could settle".
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"Our forefathers took centuries
to build cathedrals from stone.
Our Cathedrals of Images can be put up in a second".
Albert PLECY
Click on the image to download
the leaflet on the basic information
on CATHEDRALE D'IMAGES.
You can download the book
on Albert Plécy's biography
by clicking on the picture (8.4 Mo) only in French |
Le Village of Les Baux de Provence ...
The fascinating remains of the medieval castle in Les Baux are located on one of the most imposing outcrops in the Alpilles: a chain of hills that constitute the last foothills of the Alps before plunging down towards the Rhone valley and its delta. The area's strategic importance led to its fortification during the Iron Age and became a citadel for the lords of Provence in the Middle Ages. Their castle towered above the city, which was erected around its walls. However its power and importance were, in a sense, the cause of its downfall, since the disobedience of the Counts of Provence provoked the anger of the Cardinal de Richelieu. This led to the destruction of the castle in 1632.
At its peak in the 13th century, the town had over 3,000 inhabitants but it was gradually deserted. Because of this, there were only 64 people living in Les Baux by 1931. Nowadays, many visitors come to admire the remarkable landscape. Over one million visitors each year from all over the world witness the patient restoration and protection of the remains of the old village.
The road that goes to the North, in the direction of Maillane and of Avignon, follows the Val d'Enfer and goes back down to the north of the Alpilles towards the fertile plain of Châteaurenard. The name Val d'Enfer, which according to the legend inspired Dante in "The Divine Comedy", is enough to describe the valley's tortured natural forms. However, from time to time, next to the eroded, strange shapes, flat, vertical surfaces, incongruous right angles, can be made out among the curves shaped by the wind.
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www.chateau-baux-provence.com
| The quarries...
Les Baux's special feature is that it is the quarrying centre for two types of rock of contrasting colours: red bauxite and white limestone.
The dark red rock was discovered in 1821 and named bauxite after the name of the village. Paradoxically, the name Baux comes from Provençal and means "white mountain".
The white stone, among others, was quarried at the "Grands Fonts" or "Fonds" quarry. It closed in 1935, ironically the victim of too much demand for construction materials in the region that started at the beginning of the 1920s. The quantity of stone and limited quarrying led to a prohibitive price tag compared with concrete and steel. Of the ten quarries in the region of Saint Rémy and Les Baux being worked at the beginning of the 20th century, there now remains just one in operation.
The working of the quarries in the region probably has its origins in Glanum, a site of archaeological interest near Saint Rémy. The Gauls, then the Greeks in the 2nd century B.C., used roughly cut out blocks of relatively soft limestone. And yet some stones cut with greater precision date from the period before the Roman occupation; at that time Glanum had over 5,000 inhabitants. The existence of construction materials on-site helped with the development of the town, but those blocks of stone were also exported to Arles and up the Rhone River up to Lyon.
The Baux region has other types of stone that are more resistant, but bauxite is probably the easiest to cut. The large amounts of stone produced in the Saint Rémy region meant that quarrymen were forced to adapt mining techniques, using winches and shafts leading to the surface. This, as well as the need for stone in the construction of the medieval castle and of the village of Les Baux, brought about the opening ofquarries in this part of the Alpilles.
Stone cutting methods did not change until the invention of the "Frigbob" saw around 1880. The first blocks at the quarry summit were the most difficult to quarry. Four 50-cm deep horizontal holes were made using an iron bar to mark out the block's corners. They could be at a distance of two metres from each other horizontally and one metre vertically. These holes were then joined up by chiselling narrow openings to make a rectangle. A huge block was thus obtained, with the back of the block still attached to the rock. Quarrymen used the block's corners, which were finely cut, to detach it from the mountain. Quarrying the other blocks was easier once the first block had been removed.
The majority of quarrymen's work was carried out using picks called "chipping hammers" used until the end of the 19th century. The marks they left on the stone can still be seen today and are different to those left by saws. Even after the invention of the "Frigbob", working at the quarry was extremely hard and quarrying the first block at the top of the gallery could take over two days' work. The blocks then had to be squared off and transported, which was a difficult task with blocks that sometimes weighed half a ton. And yet the finished product is an evenly cut mass, spectacularly white and surprisingly pure.
The quarrymen left behind walls and pillars the surfaces of which are amazingly even. A quarry, an ideal medium for thousands of images, a multidimensional screen in white rock, a receptacle for light bursting out from the darkness of the galleries.
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CATHEDRALE D'IMAGES, the site...
Today, CATHEDRALE D'IMAGES still uses the quarry in the same way as when it was opened to the public in 1977. It is made up of three main areas: the Jean Cocteau entrance, the Abel Gance room and the Albert Plécy room.
The Jean Cocteau entrance was named after the poet and film director. It comprises the car park and main entrance. The stage backing onto the mountain at the far end was used as the setting for Jean Cocteau's last film, "The Testament of Orpheus", in 1959. The sculptures erected at the top of this opening were created for a more recent film, "Antigone", starring Stellio Lorenzi (1974).
The Abel Gance room is partly covered but has large openings along its length. It lends itself wonderfully well to the regular exhibitions held there throughout the year.
Finally, the Albert Plécy room is the Image Totale(c) screening room. To the right of the entrance, a large gallery disappears sixty metres under the mountain, leading to a gigantic hall that is split up by huge columns left behind by the quarrymen to support the "roof". The bases of these natural pillars measure between five and ten metres and they are between seven and nine metres high. Like the walls and ceiling, they are used as natural screens for the projections. Thus some 4,000 m2 of natural screens are available for projecting images in 12-meter high rooms. These surfaces are not completely flat and even, which increases the relief effect. The images are never flat nor centred. Spectators move around, discovering new angles of view and perspectives. They are submerged in a world in which the ceiling is lit up with images and images creep along the floor and burst onto the ridges.
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The production...
The photographs and production needed for each programme require in-depth knowledge of the projection room and the problems posed by the diversity of the natural screens.
Over fifty projectors each send out images of between 50 and 100 m2. Each programme includes between two and three thousand images. The sequences and rhythms are chosen and programmed by computer so that each projector can be co-ordinated, taking its position in the room and the required effects into account.
The soundtrack, which is specially written for each production, helps, through meticulous synchronisation, to make the images more powerful and punctuate the different parts of the programme. Let us cite the original compositions by Armand Amar, Christian Cadoret, Richard Cornu, Philippe Ferret, Francis Lai, Jean-Jacques Lion, Eric Lobstein and Jean Musy.
Directors have used different techniques over the years. Ginette Blery, a journalist, describes one of them as follows: "Hans Walter Müller, who worked in the world of architecture before multimedia, has homogeneously divided up the space available to him to determine where to put his projectors and work out the composition of his images.
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Les Baux's special feature is that it is the quarrying centre for two types of rock of contrasting colours: red bauxite and white limestone.
The dark red rock was discovered in 1821 and named bauxite after the name of the village. Paradoxically, the name Baux comes from Provençal and means "white mountain".
The white stone, among others, was quarried at the "Grands Fonts" or "Fonds" quarry. It closed in 1935, ironically the victim of too much demand for construction materials in the region that started at the beginning of the 1920s. The quantity of stone and limited quarrying led to a prohibitive price tag compared with concrete and steel. Of the ten quarries in the region of Saint Rémy and Les Baux being worked at the beginning of the 20th century, there now remains just one in operation.
The working of the quarries in the region probably has its origins in Glanum, a site of archaeological interest near Saint Rémy. The Gauls, then the Greeks in the 2nd century B.C., used roughly cut out blocks of relatively soft limestone. And yet some stones cut with greater precision date from the period before the Roman occupation; at that time Glanum had over 5,000 inhabitants. The existence of construction materials on-site helped with the development of the town, but those blocks of stone were also exported to Arles and up the Rhone River up to Lyon.
The Baux region has other types of stone that are more resistant, but bauxite is probably the easiest to cut. The large amounts of stone produced in the Saint Rémy region meant that quarrymen were forced to adapt mining techniques, using winches and shafts leading to the surface. This, as well as the need for stone in the construction of the medieval castle and of the village of Les Baux, brought about the opening ofquarries in this part of the Alpilles.
Stone cutting methods did not change until the invention of the "Frigbob" saw around 1880. The first blocks at the quarry summit were the most difficult to quarry. Four 50-cm deep horizontal holes were made using an iron bar to mark out the block's corners. They could be at a distance of two metres from each other horizontally and one metre vertically. These holes were then joined up by chiselling narrow openings to make a rectangle. A huge block was thus obtained, with the back of the block still attached to the rock. Quarrymen used the block's corners, which were finely cut, to detach it from the mountain. Quarrying the other blocks was easier once the first block had been removed.
The majority of quarrymen's work was carried out using picks called "chipping hammers" used until the end of the 19th century. The marks they left on the stone can still be seen today and are different to those left by saws. Even after the invention of the "Frigbob", working at the quarry was extremely hard and quarrying the first block at the top of the gallery could take over two days' work. The blocks then had to be squared off and transported, which was a difficult task with blocks that sometimes weighed half a ton. And yet the finished product is an evenly cut mass, spectacularly white and surprisingly pure.
The quarrymen left behind walls and pillars the surfaces of which are amazingly even. A quarry, an ideal medium for thousands of images, a multidimensional screen in white rock, a receptacle for light bursting out from the darkness of the galleries.
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