The Arts et Métiers campus Arts et Métiers welcomes Gérard Mourou, winner of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physics

From Fresnel to the Impressionists

Two hundred years ago, the scientific world abandoned Isaac Newton's particle theory in favor of Christian Huygens' wave theory. The demonstration was the work of a young graduate of the École Polytechnique, Augustin Fresnel, born in Normandy in 1788.

Surprisingly, at the same time, painting was also changing. Some artists were moving away from neoclassical and romantic trends, abandoning figurative drawing in favor of color.

This intriguing coincidence between science and the arts, never before mentioned in the history of painting, will be presented at two iconic institutions in Aix-en-Provence: the Arts et Métiers campus for science and the Granet Museum for the arts, following on from the conferences organized by the Louvre Museum as part of UNESCO's Year of Light in 2015.

3 prominent physicists on campus

The morning of September 27 at Arts et Métiers devoted to the history of the nature of light by professors Michèle Leduc and Edmond Amouyal —both emeritus research directors at the CNRS — highlighting, among other things, the link between Fresnel optics and the sophistication of optics that paved the way for art photography and cinematography.
The morning will conclude with a presentation by Professor Gérard Mourou on extreme and coherent light, the subject of the latest Nobel Prize in Physics.

With the participation of Cobaty, Fastlite, Thales, andthe École Polytechnique de Paris.