The Shanghai series takes us back in time. Cássio Vasconcellos photographed Shanghai from an identical point of view, showing us the Chinese city day and night, during misty mornings or rainy afternoons. As in his series A picturesque voyage through Brazil, the photographs of the Shanghai series of Cássio Vasconcellos implicitly refer to painting. The art of the Impressionists and other avant-garde, with for example the series of Rouen Cathedrals painted by Monet at the end of the 19th century, and later Robert Delaunay's series of windows, in the 1910s, play on the rendering of luminosity. The variations of light are at the heart of each of these series, we find the same theme in the photographs of Shanghai taken by Cássio Vasconcellos.