Why paintings by great painters replace advertising billboards in cities

The “Beauty will save the world” operation proposes to display Art in advertising billboards to make the paintings of great masters accessible to as many people as possible.

Since Tuesday, November 19, you may have come across paintings by great painters displayed on advertising billboards. This is an operation called “Beauty will save the world”, to make culture accessible to as many people as possible.

The principle is simple: masterpieces by great artists are displayed on advertising panels, bus shelters, windows, public transport, pediments of public buildings, garden gates, and even construction site tarpaulins.

In Normandy, two municipalities in Seine-Maritime are among the 32 cities participating in the operation simultaneously: Barentin et Bois-Guillaumenear Rouen.

“Since the 1960s, the commune of Barentin has been recognized for its Museum in the Street which houses more than 100 statues spread throughout the town and in 2021, the Caux-Austreberthe community of communes continued the approach by creating Inspire, the first contemporary art festival in the landscape”, explains Christophe Bouillon, mayor of Barentin.

“It is therefore with enthusiasm that we wanted to participate in the initiative to continue to make art accessible to all and continue the work initiated by Mayor André Marie (1945-1974) who used to say 'contemplation beauty commands the practice of good'.”

The “Beauty will save the world” initiative was born in Saint-Dizier, in the east of France, during the Covid crisis. Since then, it has attracted around twenty municipalities.

The first year, the town of Saint-Dizier made the display with royalty-free reproductions, then it entered into a partnership with the Grand Palace in Paris, which allowed the reproduction of around a hundred selected works.

Each edition revolves around a theme, this year: Light in Art. In 2025, “Beauty Will Save the World” will be structured as an association to try to generalize the concept.

Here are the cities involved in the process, to be discovered until December 8, 2024:

Saint-Dizier (Haute-Marne), Bourges (Cher), Saint-Raphaël (Var), Salbris (Loir-et-Cher), Talmont Saint-Hilaire (Vendée), Naveil (Loir-et-Cher), Châteauroux (Indre) ), Neuvy-sur-Barangeon (Cher), Barentin (Seine-Maritime), Château-Thierry (Aisne), Orry-la-ville (Oise), Bondues (North), Sablé sur Sarthe (Sarthe), Graulhet (Tarn), Baulon (Ille-et-Vilaine), Roanne (Loire), Laval (Mayenne), Béthune (Pas-de-Calais), Aubervilliers (Seine-Saint- Denis), Libourne (Gironde), Brétigny-sur-Orge (Essonne), Longwy (Meurthe-et-Moselle), Aix-en-Provence (Bouches-du-Rhône), Bagneux (Hauts-de-Seine), Bois-Guillaume (Seine-Maritime), Plouzané (Finistère), Puteaux (Hauts-de-Seine), Quessoy (Côtes-d’Armor), Dunkirk (North), Meudon (Hauts-de-Seine), Saint-André-les-Lille (North).