Why does a beautiful sketch please us more than a handsome painting? Because there is more life and less shape... The sketch appeals to us so strongly perhaps only because, being indeterminate, it leaves more freedom to our imagination... Denis Diderot, salon of 1747.

In Ajaccio, for the time of an exhibition allowed thanks to loans by Italian, German and French museums like the Collections Lemma or Fagiolo dell'Arco, more than one hundred of these prestigious bozzetti and modelli from the gallery of the Loves of the Gods of the Palazzo Farnese, the Sala Regia di Quirinale, the Palazzo Barberini, the Gesu Church, Saint-Peter's in Rome, San Nicola degli Loreni or other distinguished places, were put together around major works preserved at the Fesch Museum. They made it possible to follow the evolution of ceiling decoration in time: from Carrachi brothers quadro riportato to Lanfranco's swirling cupola, from Il Baciccio's hole in the vault to Pozzo's light into the clouds, from Bernini's lesson to Vouet's apotheoses.

The presentation ended by an evocation from the new proposals formulated by Giordano, Solimena, Giaquinto but also by Maratta and Chiari, which constituted one of the axes for the trompe-l'oeil in the XVIIIe century.

Les Cieux en gloire was one of the six exhibitions of national interest in France for 2002.

The painting of XVIIe century in Italy revolved around Rome, the European cultural capital of art and religion. The enthusiasm of the religious revival started by the Counter-Reformation exalted arts. The popes and their families made a demonstration of their power by architectural works, and imposing painted or carved works. Three great styles follow one another: Caravaggio's naturalism, Guido Reni's classicism and baroque itself from the brilliant Bernini and from Pietro da Cortona.

The baroque is a spectacular setting for faith which involves the spectator in a swirl: architecture, painting, sculpture, and furniture must contribute to transmit a solemn and grand feeling, rich and emphatic.

At the request of Mr Olivesi, curator of the Fesch Museum in Ajaccio, we wanted to work out a scenography which was a casket for the presentation of these baroque paintings.

For that, it appeared essential to us to revive with ochres drowned in gold and sun from the Roman atmosphere. Thus, we covered the walls of the museum's rooms with coloured limes, lengthened the view with carpets paths and supported ceilings with muscular atlantes.