The lovers of La Bastille by Willy Ronis

“The Lovers of La Bastille“, Paris, 1957.

© Ministère de la Culture - donation by Willy Ronis.

This couple of lovebirds was immortalized by Willy Ronis at the top of the Bastille column, in 1957. As the Algerian war roars, this image establishes Paris as the capital of love.

Willy Ronis’s “Lovers of the Bastille” are among those post-war photos that have circulated around the world. Reproduced endlessly, they are nevertheless the image of what has happened only once.

Riton and Marinette - that's the name of these two Auvergnats - only climbed to the top of the Bastille column once and that was on that day in 1957! But the photographer took the opportunity to fix the definitive image of Paris in our minds, as the city of lovers.

Ronis’s eye had acquired the aesthetic of northern painters, visible even in the treatment of light. In this image, the white, grazing, lateral glow of a winter morning shines on the domes and sculpts the facades, adding to the scene the dramatized effect of theatrical lighting.