Art installation, Grand Pergola - the Hotel-de-ville

Five colors are distributed across thousands of strands of thin Christmas balls in the installation.

Standing as vivid colorful visual treat over the grand pergola of the Hotel-de-ville, Le Havre, France; the art installation derives from the impressionist movement. Claude Cormier discusses here his ideas that lead to the creation.

The installation creates a panorama of colors over the grand pergola.

Words from the designer

"The impressionist eye is here articulated in a basic palette of five colours distributed across thousands of strands of thin Christmas balls. Mimicking the opportunistic wisteria and its voracious pursuit of light, these strands shall invade the bare patches of the grand pergola at Le Havre's Hotel-de-ville. These swarms of pink, purple, green, blue, and off-white will blur with the existing flourish of climbing leaves, creating a vivid impression, alive and artificial, animated by the canvas of deep blue and chasing clouds that is Le Havre's maritime sky."

The installation derives inspiration from Monet and the Impressionist movement.

"It was in late 19th century, in Le Havre, where the sun first rose on the new impressionist movement in painting, captured by Monet and his renderings of light. His palette of a few simple colours are blended to convey the infinite nuances produced by light on a myriad of surfaces, textures, and colours, as well as by the movements of wind, clouds, and the path of the sun. Bending towards the light, the subjects of his works depict the dignity of desire and the joy of yearning that arise in the abundance of such overwhelming generosity."

View of the installation set against the Hotel-de-ville in France.

Night-time view of the installation.

Impressionism coined by Louis Leroy, in Charivari, April 24, 1874, for Monet's painting of Le Havre harbour, titled Impression: Soleil Levant

Credits

• Text: Courtesy, the landscape architect
• Photographs by Jacques Perron
• Compiled and edited by Varun M. Ajani