LUMIÈRE PAINTERS
In the museum, Lumière frames are accompanied by paintings. These paintings were borne of impressionism’s revolutionary way of looking at things: the depiction of the invisible (light, wind), the inaccessible (clouds, snow), and the intangible (smoke, fumes). The Lumière frames reflect the iconography of their time, particularly through the desire to capture an atmospheric representation of the city and natural surroundings, portray the end-of-century trades and the visible effects of the industrial revolution (fumes, streams of traffic, bustling crowds, etc.).


LUMIÈRE ENGINEERS
The various devices that preceded the Cinematograph are exhibited on the “evolution counter”. The centre-piece is the Cinematograph no. 1, which was discovered by the collector Paul Génard. Displays offer interactive demonstrations of “pre-cinema” devices.


LUMIÈRE FILMMAKERS
From as early as 1896, the publication of enthusiastic descriptions of the Cinematograph led to numerous offers to buy it. But the Lumières preferred to retain control over how it would be used. They trained operatives who they then dispatched all around the world to bring back images. This “globalisation” brought the Lumières strikingly close to all corners of the planet. Through cinema, Lumière brought the world to the whole world.


PHOTORAMA
A reproduction of the photorama, Louis Lumière’s huge invention unveiled in 1901 which enabled photographs to be projected into a 6-metre high 360° panorama enveloping its audience.


LUMIÈRE PHOTOGRAPHERS
Many inventors have strived to reproduce reality in pictures, and over time these pictures have gradually become more and more accurate and more and more quick to capture. Around 1826, Nicéphore Niepce (1765-1833) became the first person to successfully capture an image. The Lumières also contributed to the discoveries by perfecting the legendary blue plates, a photographic technique that brought them wealth at just 20 years old, and autochrome plates, which were melancholic depictions of an art of living.


LUMIÈRES DEFYING DEFINITION
Inexhaustible researchers, Auguste and Louis Lumière even ventured into medicine. Their innovations included “Lumière tulle gras”, a famous dressing for burns, and the fascinating homonoid forceps made from hooks and complex arrangements that would not look out of place in a David Cronenberg fantasy. The clamp was undoubtedly an object that dominated Louis Lumière’s subconsciousness: it appears everywhere from the sewing machine and the manual prosthesis to the way he fed the film in the Cinematograph.