“Je ne vois que le soleil”
La lumière dans les collections

I See Only the Sun explored the selectivity of the artist’s eye in a Western civilization where light, associated with beauty and truth, contrasts with shadow, the realm of fear and evil.

Over the centuries, artists have made essential contributions to the scientific understanding of light phenomena and have advanced in mastering their representation. However, the knowledge accumulated is not an end in itself, but an ever-expanding aesthetic arsenal at the service of a vision of the world. Thus, the artist remains in control, distributing shadows and light, from the chiaroscuro of the 17th century, where the followers of Caravaggio and Rembrandt made light an event in a world drowned in darkness, to Impressionism, where the effects of daylight infuse color into the deepest shadows, from the immanent light of the golden backgrounds of the Middle Ages to the direct sources of artificial light used for diffusion or projection from the 1960s onward.

Chiaroscuro, reflections, highlights, cast shadows, glittering, silhouettes, solarizations, projections… I See Only the Sun unfolded its theme through works from the museum’s collection and works from both public and private collections.

Loans of works from the Fondation Jean et Suzanne Planque, the Alice Pauli Gallery, Lausanne, the Musée d’Art du Valais, Sion, the Musée Historique de Lausanne, the Musée Jenisch, Vevey, and the Cantonal Print Cabinet – Pierre Decker Fund.