From left to right: Françoise INGHELAERE, City councillor of Argenteuil in charge of Culture, Pierre BEDOUELLE, President of the Impressionisms Routes, Georges LUCENET, Manager of the Impressionisms Routes, and Stefano DOMINIONI, Executive Secretary of the Enlarged Partial Agreement on Cultural Routes.

The ”Impressionisms Routes” celebrated their 2018 certification as a « Cultural Route of the Council of Europe » during a ceremony on 19th March at the College des Bernardins in Paris. The event was organised by the Cultural Route managing network « Eau et Lumiere », under the patronage of the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs of France. Representatives of the route’s members from France, Spain, the Netherlands and Germany attended the events.

Stefano Dominioni, Executive Secretary of the EPA attended the event and addressed the over 200 participants on behalf of the Council of Europe. He recognized the work of Pierre Bedouelle, president of the “Eau & Lumière” Association, and its Vice-President, George Lucenet, along with the many impressionisms sites, their mayors and local authorities in France and Europe-wide.

The Impressionisms Routes, organised in painters’ routes, aim at creating and fostering, within the European continent, a link between the sites that have inspired the European impressionists and open-air painters from the mid-19th century until the mid-20th century, the places where they lived and established artists’ colonies and the towns where their works are today displayed in museums.

The route obtained its certification during the Governing Board of the Enlarged Partial Agreement on Cultural Routes of the Council of Europe (EPA) meeting in Luxembourg, on 18-19th April 2018.

This certification, together with Via Charlemagne -certified in 2018 as well-, brings the Cultural Routes of the Council of Europe programme to 33 certified routes.