"In the Light of Vézelay

In the Light of Vézelay Article published on 24 August by Emmanuelle Guiliani, director of the Vézelay cultural department La Croix newspaperin the form of an interview with Hélène Raminartistic director of the Maison du Visiteur.

Throughout the year, the Maison du Visiteur offers visitors the chance to discover the secrets of the builders of the Madeleine Basilica, an edifice of stone and light that undergoes metamorphosis as the days and seasons go by.

La Croix: What is the mission of the Maison du Visiteur de Vézelay?

Hélène Ramin: Vézelay and its basilica are a major tourist attraction, welcoming visitors of all ages and from all over the world: families and pilgrims, the general public and scholars.

The builders of Vézelay

The tours we offer are designed to meet the needs of a wide range of people, from primary school pupils to members of a learned society with a passion for architecture.

So we adapt flexibly, while always ensuring the professional quality of our offerings, whatever the audience we are targeting.

Visiting an edifice like the Basilica of Vézelay is an aesthetic experience that we set against its symbolic dimension, which has endured and radiated for centuries.

Light is your common thread... H. R. : The builders of Vézelay really worked with light as much as with stone.

Scientific studies clearly show that the orientation of the building owes nothing to chance (1). If, for Christians, the sun evokes the light spread by Christ throughout humanity, it is a symbol that speaks to all civilisations and all religions.

It's fascinating to discover during our visits how people from cultures very different from our own, or even completely alien to the idea of transcendence, experience the symbolism of the sun.

Without being overly didactic, we try to draw a line between the cosmic light, the light of thought, the inner light and the divine light.

We walk all or part of this path, depending on the visitor and the exchange that takes place. It's certainly not a question of telling them the truth...

Through these visits, as well as a film and photographic images, you wanted to capture the marriage between light and architecture. How did you do this?

H. R.: We wanted to capture this 'conversation' between stone and sun. For two years, notebook in hand, I scouted the basilica, winter and summer, morning and evening.

Light and architecture

The way the light plays with the architecture is fascinating: in winter, it successively illuminates the different sides of the capitals; in summer, at Midsummer's Day, the nine pools forming a "path of light" on the pavement of the nave offer an exhilaratingly poetic spectacle.

This path, which attracts thousands and thousands of visitors to Vézelay on the first days of summer, was rediscovered in the mid-1970s by the Franciscan friar Hugues Delautre, who was responsible for the daily upkeep of the basilica.

Once the scouting work was done, photographer Philippe Brame set to work in the basilica, with the precision and availability of a medieval craftsman. To fulfil the commission we had given him: to use his lens to capture these luminous moments like so many poetic phrases.

We're also putting the finishing touches to a new project, in the form of a 50-minute film about the basilica's great tympanum. The film is due for release on the winter solstice...

(1) The Visitors' Centre has a model of the basilica on display, showing how it was built.
In the Light of Vézelay, article by Emmanuelle Guiliani