Translator’s note Le Chant du Monde may be translated into English as The Song of the World. For each of the titles of the ten tapestries that constitute this formidable textile work of art, a translation has been suggested below: La Grande Menace – The Great Threat L’Homme d’Hiroshima – The Man of Hiroshima Le Grand Charnier – The Mass Grave La Fin de Tout – The End of Everything L’Homme en gloire dans la Paix – Glorious Man in Peace L’Eau et le Feu – Water and Fire Champagne – Champagne Conquête de l’Espace – The Conquest of Space La Poésie – Poetry Ornamentos sagrados – Sacred Ornaments
Musées d’Angers Ariane James-Sarazin, Chief Heritage Curator, Director of the Museums and Artothèque of Angers Coordination: Nathalie Planson Translation from french: Emma Lingwood Administration: Thierry Berlatier and Sonia Lavigne Documentation: Clémence Alexandre and Dominique Sauvegrain Photography: François Baglin Communication: Juliette Rudel (museums) and Nicolas Ballais (City of Angers) © Musées d’Angers, Angers, 2015 © Somogy éditions d’art, Paris, 2015
This book was produced under the direction of Somogy éditions d’art Publishing director: Nicolas Neumann Editor: Stéphanie Méséguer Graphic design and layout: Nelly Riedel Editorial coordination: Benjamin Baulé Editorial contribution: Katharine Turvey Technical production: Béatrice Bourgerie and Mélanie Le Gros ISBN: 978-2-7572-1032-1 Copyright registration: october 2015 Printed in Latvia (European Union)
Jean Lurรงat Le Chant du Monde Gร RARD DENIZEAU
FOREWORD ‘Poetry will be like painting; and painting like poetry; the two sisters vie with one another in reflecting each other, they exchange their tasks and their names; painting is said to be mute poetry, and poetry is given the name of speaking painting; poets sing what is pleasant to the ear, while painters endeavour to depict what is beautiful to look at; and what is unworthy of the poets’ verse is not worth the painters’ efforts either’ CHARLES DU FRESNOY, De arte graphica (Paris, 1667), lines 1–8
Since the Renaissance, the close association between poetry and painting has been part of the shared domain of artistic literature: theoreticians and critics have employed the oft-repeated aphorism of the Greek Simonides of Ceos, cited by Plutarch in his De gloria Atheniensium, according to which poetry is a spoken form of painting and painting a mute poetry. Condensed by Horace into a formula that has been endlessly cited (‘Ut pictura poesis’, ‘Poetry is like painting’), both terms of equivalence were soon inverted to proclaim that ‘painting is like poetry’. Far from being merely anecdotal or purely a matter of form, this inversion established the principle of the liberal status of painting, and thereby its nobility and that of its followers. As the first form of literary expression of mankind, poetry was initially intended for declamation and oral presentation, before being written down. While poetry is ‘speaking painting’ with its stylistic features and the suggestiveness of its images, it is also musical through the rhythmics of the words and the effects of sonority. As underlined by the founding poems of our civilisation—the Iliad, Odyssey, and Aeneid—bards have always associated sounds, colours, and words as they sang, for instance, ‘O Muse’ (Iliad, song 1) and ‘War and Man’ (Aeneid, Book I). Jean Lurçat (1892–1966) perpetuated and even went beyond this heritage with Le Chant du Monde—which is all at once an epic ‘poem’, a symphony, and a woven fresco; he was a modern-day bard, whose work constitutes an alchemy of the senses. Gérard Denizeau emerges, for the reader’s delectation, as the inspired commentator of this alchemy of the demiurge called Lurçat. ARIANE JAMES-SARAZIN Chief Heritage Curator, Director of the Museums and Artothèque of Angers
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Like the catalogue raisonné of Jean Lurçat’s painted works and the monograph I have devoted to the artist, this publication on Le Chant du Monde owes its existence to a great many people to whom I am deeply grateful: Françoise de Loisy, curator of the Musée Jean-Lurçat et de la Tapisserie contemporaine, in Angers, who asked me back in 2003 to write an updated study of this great wall hanging and who has provided considerable support throughout this endeavour. Ariane James-Sarrazin, director of the Musées d’Angers, for her affable and constructive support of both the project and its author. The entire staff of the Musées d’Angers for their invaluable assistance since 1986. Bernard Dorival, who methodically oversaw my thesis on Jean Lurçat, presented at the Sorbonne, on 23 February 1989. Jean Agamemnon, a close friend of Lurçat, who enlightened me about the artist’s taste in music in relation to Le Chant du Monde. Sylvain Bertoldi, director of the Archives, Research and Photograph Library of Angers, and all of the staff of this institution. Jean-Luc Blum, Jean Lurçat’s main assistant, an invaluable witness and attentive reader. Claude Brizay, Paul José Gosselin, Janine Dassonval, and Josep Grau-Garriga, Lurçat’s assistants for Le Chant du Monde. Pierre Delbos, a friend of Lurçat whose recorded account was generously sent on to me, without hesitation, by Gérard Perrier and Sabine Millecamps. Robert Doisneau, renowned photographer and friend of Lurçat, with whom he shared similar ideals. Sabine Gignoux, journalist at the newspaper La Croix, for her very useful information about ethical and artistic aspects of Le Chant du Monde. Catherine Giraud, archivist for the museums of Aubusson, for her archival research on the Tabard atelier. Suzanne Goubely and Raymond Picaud, weavers at Aubusson. Sophie Guérin Gasc, director of the Dom Robert Association, for her precious insights gleaned from the archives of the Goubely atelier. Béatrice Latscha-Angel, daughter of Bella Angel, Lurçat’s doctor towards the end of his life. Emma Lingwood, who in addition to her translation of the book into English, pointed out several inaccuracies or errors. Mrs and Mr Jean-François Picaud, for passing on information from the archives of the Picaud atelier. Isabelle Rooryck, head curator of the museums of the Lot département, for her thorough proofreading and insights relating to the spiritual dimension of Le Chant du Monde. In no particular order: Nicole Amblard, Pierre Biro, Françoise Garnaud, Catherine IsidoroLurçat, Denise Majorel, Yvette Moch, Claude Roy, Vercors, Bruno Ythier… The staff of countless institutions: the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the Archives nationales, the Bibliothèque des Arts décoratifs, the Musée d’Art moderne de la Ville de Paris, the Sorbonne, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art Research Library, the California Palace of the Legion of Honor (San Francisco) and the Victoria & Albert Museum Library (London).
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PREFACE It is to Pierre Biro, filmmaker and friend of Jean Lurçat, that we owe the title Le Chant du Monde. This title can be said to bring together the immensity of the work with its diversity of references and meanings, and situates the lyricism of the shapes and colours of the artwork within the order of musical time. Although this title was not of the artist’s own invention—he himself had proposed La Joie de vivre1—he immediately and enthusiastically adhered to Biro’s suggestion. For in its visionary dimension, Le Chant du Monde offers less an anarchic ensemble of the sounds of the world than their methodical and rigorous restitution, subject to, and shaped by, a truly unique discourse. When walking in front of the ten pieces of Lurçat’s masterpiece, the visitor quickly realizes, especially if he is undisturbed in his contemplation of the artwork, that the silence of these multicoloured tapestries contains the echo of terrible turmoil—volcanic eruptions, telluric groans, atomic blasts, floods, the cries of animals, ritual hymns, clamours of distress or alarm, and shouts of joy, hope and appeal … This textile artwork restores and reintegrates all of the sounds that have marked the fate of humanity since the beginning of time and positions itself within the turbulent duration of history, a duration that is recognized, factual and contingent, free from metaphysical connotations. Firmer in his refusals—particularly those of the ‘lament’ and the ‘romance’—than in his choices, Lurçat leaves the careful observer of Le Chant du Monde a freedom of interpretation and reflection, open to infinity itself. The literary influence Above all, the painter remains faithful to his Mediterranean culture, in which the transmission of knowledge revolves around the importance of the written word. Jean Lurçat’s own book production amounted to some twenty-two books, both didactic and illustrated works, produced in addition to his painting, engraving and textile artwork. No less than three forewords and hundreds of articles bear testimony to his predilection for the written word. It is no coincidence therefore that he uses the expression ‘table of contents of a life’ to refer to the tapestry Le Chant du Monde, a collection of ten immense panels, all woven in wool, each representative of an entire chapter. Over time, the unfinished nature of the tapestry would become an organic part of its aesthetic. Perhaps one could say that, here, the painter imitates the model of those storybooks— notably Arabian Nights, to which he frequently referred—wherein the source of inspiration is inherently infinite. Informed by literary traits, Le Chant du Monde establishes two parameters in the very first tapestry, entitled La Grande Menace, parameters that would be applied throughout the rest of the work: a linear narrative and a reading from left to right. While the ten tapestries may be approached or viewed in a different order and read in a disjointed fashion, it is uncertain what benefit the viewer would draw from this.2 Like a novel with its chapters out of order, a poem with mixed-up quatrains or an opera with its acts out of sequence, surely the ensemble would lose the essence of its meaning. Variations on a theme Refuting the characteristics of the ‘romance’ for his masterpiece, Lurçat’s work is more formalist than it would appear. Much more than a simple melody, Le Chant du Monde is like a symphonic poem. The symphonic poem boasts a structure that is fundamentally romantic and that allows the musician to move freely between variation and development. In this great wall hanging that is intended as a chronicle and mirror of contemporary history, one notes that almost all of the visual elements or details are contained in the initial episode, La Grande Menace. These are then altered and developed in the following episodes to the point of becoming for the most part, unrecognizable. The viewer’s attention is drawn at first glance to an almost systematic dialectic of juxtaposition and amongst the most striking features of this epic theme: the fierce struggle of light against darkness, sound against silence, mobility against immobility, peace against war, fullness 6
1. ‘The first title of this Chant du Monde was La Joie de vivre. It didn’t take long to convince me that life, for those who try to live it correctly, is something bittersweet, happy and sad, troubled and serene, all at the same time.’ (Lurçat’s manuscript, 1963). 2. The order of presentation of the ten tapestry panels of Le Chant du Monde was set by the painter himself after the first showings of the work (then displayed without the Ornamentos sagrados tapestry). Variations of this may of course be suggested, although it is best not to stray too radically from the original and intended sequence.
against the void, monuments standing proud in the face of their imminent destruction ... In Lurçat’s masterpiece, it is as if the incentive to choose between Good and Evil has replaced words with images, eliminating the verbal in favour of the purely visual. The painter’s endeavour has its precedent in historical fact. Towards the end of the Middle Ages, the choir area of churches, similar to the rooms of royal residences, made use of a large decorative textile piece known as a clotet (rood screen), the aim of which was to embellish and retain the heat of the chancel. A connoisseur of medieval tapestry, Lurçat could not ignore that, with Le Chant du Monde, he would somehow be realizing a monumental screen for the twentieth century, an undertaking that was, if at all, merely superficially anachronistic. Instructive, prophetic, didactic, pitting the strength of the heart against the scepticism of the intellect, Lurçat’s wall hanging was designed to provide evidence of the highest spiritual values of modern man. The force of vision Inspired by the monumentality and fullness of the medieval image, Lurçat, in his conception of Le Chant du Monde, seems to have based his work on the two founding principles of medieval imagery: seeing is believing; showing is persuading. The didactic purpose of this double rule results in the artist’s frank use of form and colour. Showing is saying; seeing is believing, knowing and knowing one’s self. Therefore, the proliferation of images in Le Chant du Monde is justified given that vision becomes the structuring element of the story through the repetition of visual elements. Confronted with the large tapestry, the viewer often experiences the strange sensation that his eyes are discovering what other eyes see, without having recourse to the artifice of the word. This is certainly the case in La Fin de Tout, which is realized by an omniscient creator even though, in theory, there should be no survivors left to recount the experience. By reflecting joy and exposing terror, Lurçat’s vision generates emotion in the viewer through a rebound effect. Strung together, juxtaposed like the different episodes of a performance, the ten scenes in their dramatic succession create an obvious parallel with the Romanesque fresco, which was made for the edification of those who, by looking and meditating, saw and believed. Making use of some of the very old devices of medieval imagery, Lurçat implements a whole structural arsenal in his quest to create the constant sensation of a chorus of sound or of a visual echo and to ensure the seamless transition between scenes. These devices include: the repetition of motifs and colours and, inversely, the juxtaposition of colours; the use of curves and diagonals to direct the viewer’s gaze; the repetition of figures, albeit in altered form... More familiar with the chanson de geste (a form of medieval epic poem) than with the ancient epic, the painter makes abundant use of the medieval technique of parataxis (construction by simple juxtaposition, without connection), privileging one subject per episode, hence the inevitable variation in the length of each segment. Leitmotifs provide the narrative with an overall sense of linearity through the assemblage of autonomous scenes. In this way, the nuclear destruction of the world is reduced to a sequence of four distinct episodes (La Grande Menace, L’Homme d’Hiroshima, Le Grand Charnier, La Fin de Tout). However, the painter relies on the viewer’s visual intelligence to provide coherence by soliciting a continuous but invisible structure, which, at the expense of a constant game of expansion and contraction, engenders the merging of space and time, subject to the duality of division and unity. Even the false simplicity of the design and the assembly of bright colours contribute to the visual didacticism that is a part of this aesthetic. An heir of medieval imagery, Lurçat attaches more importance to light—akin to the divine Lux and physical lumen—and to the intensity of a particular colour than to its nuances. In his work, black and white acquire the status of infinity. Like the sculptures, stained glass and frescoes of the Middle Ages, Le Chant du Monde certifies that there is no truth other than the visual. Bypassing the temptation of doubt as to the absolute nature of this truth, which is dependent upon the human gaze, and is therefore subjective, Lurçat provides his visions with the characteristics of a daydream, free of psychological ambiguity. 7
THE WORK: SOURCES, GENESIS AND REALIZATION OPPOSITE
Roger Pic, Portrait of Jean Lurçat. PAGES 10-11
The Fall of Babylon, Invaded by Devils, from The Apocalypse Tapestries, fifth piece, scene 66, Château, Centre des Monuments Nationaux, Angers.
In Le Chant du Monde, Jean Lurçat took on and realized the astonishing challenge of distilling the entirety of the experiences and discoveries that had marked his long career— which was now approaching its end—into this immense masterpiece. Thus, in the artwork, distant memories of the École de Nancy and the First World War are present alongside the artist’s most recent textile developments. In addition, older influences going back to his youth are revisited through the filter of maturity. The inspiration for this great work can be found therefore in all the ‘subjects of existence’, transfigured, transformed, even distorted, but still influential. No doubt it is first of all necessary to mention the artist’s encounter with the Apocalypse d’Angers, but the universe as it is conveyed through form and colour in Le Chant du Monde has much older sources of inspiration, notably the poets Lurçat encountered in his younger days. Moreover, there is the work’s prophetic dimension with its ultimate appeal to the forces of light, which Lurçat, the tireless watcher of the dawn, was never prepared to abandon. L’APOCALYPSE D’ANGERS
Cassagnade had read the book on the Apocalypse d’Angers. For over three months, he harassed Lurçat, making him see that if the medieval Apocalypse was based on the fear of Hell, then the fear pervading modern times was that of the nuclear bomb. In 1957, the first tapestries from Le Chant du Monde were presented at the Casino de Saint-Céré.3 This is how Pierre Delbos, former director of the Casino d’art de Saint-Céré, described, towards the end of his life (he passed away on 17 May 2013), the important role played by his uncle, Jean Cassagnade, who had been Lurçat’s gardener and friend, in the undertaking that was Le Chant du Monde. Interviewed by Gérard Perrier and Sabine Millecamps, Pierre Delbos’s unique account corroborates the painter’s words: Le Chant du Monde is Cassagnade. One morning, on the stroke of ten o’clock, Cassagnade turned up at Tours with a grave and solemn expression on his face. […] He launched into his speech immediately: “Look. You have spoken to us a hundred times about the Apocalypse d’Angers. You have explained that it represented the greatest example of French art, or at least tapestry, and that it magnificently captured or illustrated the epoch in which it was created. […] Perhaps you could do something in a similar genre?”4
3. Les Films du Genièvre, Creysse, 2012. 4. Claude Faux. Lurçat à haute voix. Paris: Julliard, 1962, p. 199. 5. In 1962 Lurçat conceded: ‘I’m beginning to be convinced that this little joke will end up needing 1,000 square metres… and maybe even more!’ Lurçat à haute voix, op. cit., p. 211.
In the initial enthusiasm, a surface area of no less than 1,000 metres squared was to be allocated to the creation of the new wall hanging of the Apocalypse, in addition to a budget of approximately 80 million old francs! At first, overwhelmed by the enormity of the project (and its funding!), Jean Lurçat convinced Cassagnade to come to ‘a compromise of 500 metres squared’. However, a few years later, the artist himself would be forced to double his initial estimate of the surface area required to elaborate his masterpiece, proving that the inspired gardener had initially made a more accurate and realistic estimate.5 In July 1938, in the company of an American friend Catesby T. Jones and his wife, Jean Lurçat saw for the first time the Apocalypse d’Angers, a wall hanging dating from the late Middle Ages. This work is impressive not only for its immense size but also for the economy of its palette, and it boasts a formidable austerity and prodigious efficacy. Commissioned circa 1375 from the weaver Nicolas Bataille by the Duke of Anjou, Louis I (1339-1384), the wall hanging was created based on cartoons (full-size drawing made by an artist as a preliminary design for a painting or other work of art) by Hennequin (or Jean) de Bruges (also known as Jean Bondol), who was the official painter to King Charles V. Probably 9
A SONG IN TEN VERSES From 1957, La Grande Menace, L’Homme d’Hiroshima and La Fin de Tout were commenced, opening the cycle of Le Chant du Monde. From the very beginning, Lurçat made the decision of entrusting the majority of the weaving of this great masterpiece to the atelier (workshop) of François Tabard, whose acquaintance he had made in 1937. It was in Tabard’s atelier that the painter had initially honed his textile technique. Tabard’s atelier executed the majority of Lurçat’s tapestries, although the painter would also request the assistance of other master weavers, such as Raymond Picaud, to whom he entrusted the weaving of La Fin de Tout, and Suzanne Goubely for L’Eau et le Feu. Well aware of the risk of inconsistency, Lurçat meticulously oversaw the work of the weavers and demanded a high level of commitment, as the letter sent to Suzanne Goubely on 12 February 1958 on the subject of L’Eau et le Feu proves: 45
45. I am extremely grateful to Sophie Guérin Gasc, PhD in art history and director of the Dom Robert Association, who provided me with a number of the following clarifications, coming from her search of the Goubely archives housed at the Dourgne town hall (production notebooks INV I 2H2 and INV I 2H11, correspondance GoubelyLurçat - I2H70 - I2H81/82/83, letter dated 16 December 1957 from Suzanne Goubely to Jean Lurçat, letter dated 12 February 1958 from Jean Lurçat to Suzanne Goubely, letter dated 28 July 1958 from Simone Lurçat to Suzanne Goubely, letter dated 25 October 1960 from Suzanne Goubely to Jean Lurçat, a list of Lurçat’s tapestries woven by the Goubely atelier). For this information, I am extremely grateful.
Dear Ms Goubely, I am in Paris preparing the catalogue for my exhibition of works at the Musée d’Art moderne. Of all the artworks, the large tapestry concerns me the most. If initial discussions are realized, it will go on a tour of Europe, with exhibitions in Paris, Amsterdam, Hamburg, Prague and Rome (solely state-run museums). Therefore, the production of this panel needs to be 100 percent perfect. Obviously this is not only in the interest of your atelier, but in mine, and French textile art in general. At this stage, almost 25 metres in length have been executed and these are of a quality that leaves no doubt as to the competence of the chefs d’ateliers and the skills of their assistants. In addition, all of the tapestries that constitute this ensemble must be of the same texture, same shade, same thickness of threads, same number of threads, etc. I would ask you to immediately make contact with Raymond Picaud so that you are delivered the essential supplies used by his atelier, as well as those of Tabard. Your three ateliers will execute the 500 metres that are planned for this masterpiece and as the pieces will be layered, they need to be precisely the same quality, thickness and weight. Stop by Picaud’s and ask him to provide you with the specifications, as well as, I almost forgot to mention it, the exact height that the completed panel should be. […] Thanking you in advance for your care and attention to this work. Kindest regards. Jean Lurçat
Robert Doisneau, François Tabard, Aubusson, 1945.
Aubusson, the Goubely Workshop in the 1960s, with Suzanne Goubely in the background.
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La Grande Menace 1957, wool, 4.47 × 8.75 m, Aubusson, atelier Tabard Frères et Sœurs 46 [Cartoon produced by Claude Brizay and Jean-Luc Blum, January 1957 – finished piece removed from the loom on 13 June 1957] 47
La Grande Menace clearly represents the nuclear bomb, which provided humanity with the means of annihilating itself. Although the terrifying power of nuclear weapons was demonstrated by the utter destruction of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, on 6 and 9 August 1945, it was more specifically their increasingly destructive capabilities and their proliferation that frightened the artist.48 Following the United States, the Soviet Union (in 1949) and the United Kingdom (in 1952) developed their own nuclear weapons. France would follow suit in 1960, as would China in 1964. Moreover, on 1 November 1952, the United States tested the first H-bomb, infinitely more destructive than the A-bomb. This sinister example was followed by the Soviet Union in 1953 and by the United Kingdom in 1957. The danger became a worldwide one; the future of the entire earth, the home of mankind, was now at risk, hence Lurçat’s desire to bestow a planetary dimension upon his visions, notably through the repetition of the distinctive monuments of the world’s great civilizations.49 The choice was thus clear: preserve everything at the expense of peace or destroy everything by setting off the bomb. Here again, one should refer to Jean Lurçat’s manuscript, slightly amended for the publications accompanying the exhibitions of the first nine tapestries of the wall hanging: ‘The Atomic terror […] explains and justifies the title of my first wall hanging: La GRANDE MENACE, explains and justifies this eagle with his troubling gaze that hovers above the world, and this buffalo that drops poison on all living beings or those on the verge of life.50 Our world, in fact, exists atop a volcano. This volcano spits sulphurous fumes and makes its presence very much felt. The earth is round, it is disorderly, at once liquid and solid, and above all, it is populated by human beings of all shapes and sizes, of all colours. And everything, bacteria, beings, plants, minerals, wind—which is like the breath of the earth—all of this is connected. Let the bomb be dropped by the Eagle or the Beast so that all creation becomes nothing more than poisoned magma.51 Everything, and New York and Beijing and Cairo and Paris and Moscow or Marrakech, and Clamart and the Lido, we are warned,52 will be reduced to a nameless pile of rubble, filled with screams and distraught men, as was the case at Nagasaki and Hiroshima. To the right of this first tapestry53 floats the boat of Creation on a rare wave! Man is at the helm. Man governs because it is he who is now the master of Creation. Yes, the master of creation since he is capable of infecting and destroying it all. So, let me say it again, it is man who now holds the rudder. But above him, there is the aurochs, the Threat, the brute, the monster that ejaculates on creation.54 This is why all the animals and plants found in the ship have already been affected, spoiled, leprous even. In the sky, the first explosions streak across the background. But nothing is quite lost yet! Above the figure of the man, perched close to the rudder,55 sits the white owl of Athena … The embodiment of Wisdom watching over everything in spite of it all.’ To make his message of threat and hope even clearer, Lurçat arranged his composition into two large sections of unequal size, thereby imposing a reading from left to right, which would be applied throughout the work. From a technical perspective, the use of calques, or tracing, was especially frequent here. The painter reused animal and floral figures from his earlier compositions, insisting upon their meticulous copying by his assistants. According to his most assiduous collaborator, Jean-Luc Blum, the overuse of certain calques can explain some slight alterations of the features or traits of several of the motifs. 26
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L’Homme d’Hiroshima 1957, wool, 4.43 × 2.92 m, Aubusson, atelier Tabard Frères et Sœurs [Cartoon produced by Jean Lurçat, assisted by Jean-Luc Blum, 1956-1957 – finished piece removed from the loom on 18 November 1957]
Also known as ‘La Grande Menace become reality’. Already foreseen in L’Homme H, a small gouache dating from 1954, L’Homme d’Hiroshima is characterized by man’s position at the centre of a green mushroom cloud (heralded in La Grande Menace) where he appears rigid and petrified, consumed and disfigured by suffering. Lurçat’s emotion is palpable in his commentary on this tapestry, wherein he notes his regret at having refused the effects of a certain excess: However, there was Hiroshima… The madness was demonstrated on two separate occasions… Hiroshima, Nagasaki… The man from Hiroshima was burned, skinned, eviscerated by the bomb … but along with him, our reasons for living were also pillaged… This is why, like a rainstorm of ruins, flowers, books, a Crucifix, a hammer and sickle can all be seen to fall around the figure of the man… The bomb does not spare any ideology, any system… It annihilates all thought, all shared cultural heritage… Yet again, the libraries of Alexandria go up in flames and are destroyed… But this time round, everything is engulfed… I don’t know if I have fully illustrated this terrific dimension of the drama… If I had to start L’Homme d’Hiroshima over again, it would be even more terrible…61 The fallen book is particularly revelatory of this symbolism of calamity. For Lurçat, like many other intellectuals and artists of the time, no other symbol was more representative of the death of civilization than the burning book.62 The crucifix refers to Christianity, the sickle to the ideals of communism—the alliance of the two was deemed unnatural by narrow-minded souls, but a natural one for a Marxist artist who, committed to the communion of all willing men, upheld close ties with a number of theologians, Jesuits and Dominicans. The gloves in the upper right-hand corner come straight from a series of small gouaches that were executed in 1945 under the explicit title of Apocalypse des Mal Assis. For Lurçat, they illustrate ‘the adventure of all imbeciles—there is no other word for it—who believed in the triumph of Nazism.’63 Beyond its great lesson in humanism, the viewer may perceive here the echo of man’s immemorial questioning of his own vulnerability. The emaciated corpse resembles the late medieval transi, or cadaver sculptures, in vogue in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. It is likely that Jean Lurçat, who hailed from the Lorraine region, would have been familiar with the famous transi of René de Chalon, Prince of Orange, created by Ligier Richier in 1547 and housed in the church of Saint-Étienne de Bar-le-Duc. More than the reborn martyrs of Dürer’s or Mantegna’s work, Lurçat’s depiction of devastated man seems to illustrate the words of the great medieval poet, François Villon, in La Ballade des pendus (circa 1462): Men my brothers who after us live, have your hearts against us not hardened. For—if of poor us you take pity, God of you sooner will show mercy. You see us here, attached. As for the flesh we too well have fed, long since it’s been devoured or has rotted. And we the bones are becoming ash and dust.64 It should be noted that the obsessive fear of nuclear weapons haunted everyone. At this time, even more than the ‘ordinary’ horrors of war, the terrible tragedy of the nuclear 36
Le Grand Charnier 1959, wool, 4.40 × 7.31 m, Aubusson, atelier Tabard Frères et Sœurs [Cartoon produced by Josep Grau-Garriga and Jean-Luc Blum – finished piece removed from the loom on 28 May 1959]
The third piece of Le Chant du Monde depicts the most legible episode of all the tapestries, its legibility probably owing to the intervention of Josep Grau-Garriga. The distance that Lurçat always took care to establish from his bleakest visions is thus abolished in this Grand Charnier, which, developed in 1959, ‘depicts death in general’, as a consequence of the ineluctable dropping of the bomb. Around a hazy star, we see a kind of sun with bloodied rays, the cosmos is in ruins and what remains of the Earth twists and twirls madly, all destinies thrown together in the horror: Beginning with man, the massacre is a collective one … Le Grand Charnier translates general death … The bomb has exploded and its influence spreads out in a concentric fashion … The world is nothing more than a skeletal circle that has been slightly crushed … It is symbolized by the scraggy animal at the top of the work. This animal is a devoured goat, gnawed away or eroded by evil … and the entire tapestry work is arranged as a ronde [a circular dance. Trans], like a macabre dance … For me, death is this circular dance, this whirlwind … The economy of the composition was inspired by this idea … But it is not a harmonious dance. It is disrupted by counterpoints, meaning I go in one direction and then there is a sudden interruption … This is one of my current preoccupations—I struggle against symmetry … I need to create ruptures … One could say that I try to avoid, literally, going round in circles …70 The body of distant influences Under the large emaciated goat, a biblical symbol of evil, derived here from the ram in Francesco del Cossa’s Month of March held at the Palazzo Schifanoia in Ferrare71, the world ends by dissolving into a sombre harmony. Indeed, this immense and macabre circular dance is reminiscent of the medieval iconography that had always fascinated the artist— skeletons and skulls swirl above the funereal arch which houses the sinister hierarchy of the transi and the recumbent statue. Dead birds, an impaled turtle, a lion’s head, a triumphant reptile (rather like the terrifying serpent of Nicolas Poussin’s Déluge) … this efflorescent world is annihilated by the macabre goat. In the midst of this formidable and gruesome dance, gloves fall, fish are reduced to vague skeletons and strange fragments of colour can be seen on the wings of the disturbing butterflies. Compared to the first two pieces of Le Chant du Monde, the remarkable originality of the third tapestry lies less in the renewal of the motifs than in their metamorphosis. Shapes and colours give way to a sinister symphony in black and white which highlights, on the one hand, the figure of the serpent (the only motif not to have undergone any alteration) and on the other hand, on the right side of the tapestry, a whole chaplet of skulls designated by an emaciated hand which appears out of the void, reminiscent of Roman iconography wherein the hand of God appeared through the clouds. In the lower part of the work, it is significant that the ark is rendered as an approximate version of the Raft of the Medusa, but here the broken and horizontal ladder has lost all of its power to symbolize aspiration towards a higher state. It now serves as a coffin for the corpse of the stricken helmsman with the bleeding heart, initially seen in La Grande Menace. Undoubtedly Le Grand Charnier was inspired by numerous modern reworkings of the popular medieval genre of the Danse Macabre, or the Dance of Death. One such example is the famous Danse Macabre (1875) by Camille Saint-Saëns, a brief symphonic or tone poem whose theme is taken from ‘Égalité-Fraternité’ from the Heures sombres poetry collection credited to Henri Cazalis (alias Jean Lahor).72 We know from Jean Agamemnon’s73 testimony that Jean Lurçat knew of and loved this work, of which he 46
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La Fin de Tout 1957, wool, 4.52 × 2.26 m, Aubusson, atelier Picaud76 [Cartoon produced by Jean Lurçat and Jean-Luc Blum, 1957 – finished piece removed from the loom in 1957]
In La Fin de Tout,77 by a stunning stroke of audacity, the artist conveys the catastrophe by using nothing more than a broken flower. The artist, who once again wanted to make most of this cartoon himself, rose to the challenge by studding the black, silent, sterile background with a dusting of flakes (a feature he had already used in his macabre oils of 1928-1929 and for the gouache, Paysage atomique from 1952). These flakes suggest less the freshness of snow than the scattering of acrid ashes.78 A symbol of life and of struggle, the flower droops slowly, already destined to the fate of its extenuated reflection. The broken stem leaning to the left recalls the burning trail of a firework. Curiously similar to the volcano in La Grande Menace, the fragment of red earth is depicted less as a set of petals than as a kind of asteroid. Rather like the tiny planet of The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry,79 it provides just enough space for the bare essentials of life to develop. For Lurçat, this fourth part of Le Chant du Monde was an opportunity to justify his most personal choices—the broken flower, the black background, the snow of ashes, the void … Now everything has disappeared. It is a stage that is barely imaginable. There is no more sun, no more stars, no more fish, birds or men. It is utter night, the great void, eternal silence. It was so inconceivable that I needed this last plant, in the bottom right-hand corner. A damaged stalk and ashes. Now, it is over. It is the end of everything. I first of all thought of doing a completely black background. But something was missing. It wasn’t right. I needed to explain. What is the bomb? First of all, it’s the scattering of ashes in space, the seeds of death. I needed to portray these seeds and this is why I had the idea of the snowflakes. In doing this, I also realized that their presence fulfilled an aesthetic necessity. The seeds, the white flakes occupied the surface, balancing everything. There was at once a need for content and a need for form. Of course, it is never completely a coincidence that the technical necessity correlates with the necessity of the message.80 Meaningful words. Le Chant du Monde is not just a message or protest through the images it depicts, the notions it conveys or the feelings it arouses. It is a protest in and of itself and Lurçat increasingly realized this, much to his astonishment, as each of the tapestries were completed. In this fourth tapestry, the most remarkable characteristic is probably the absence of colour. Two reddish shades for the asteroid, a little red and green for the stalk on the left, the last traces of life are on the threshold of being engulfed by the eternity of the void. Thus ends the cycle on terror. Henceforth, using the feeble signs of enduring life that contradict the pessimism of the title and attest to the fact that all is not lost, the artist must now begin the task of constructing a song of hope. However, it is almost with a sense of regret that Lurçat leaves behind him the dark spheres of his pessimism, uncertain of his ability to convince men of the imminence of the catastrophe: I often ask myself if my four panels have enough power of persuasion. La Fin de tout, for example. It is only 2.26 metres. This poisoned snow should fall for over at least 10 metres. This drama needs to be utterly unbearable and to do so, it needs to be spread over 100 metres. People would not be able to go to the end of it. They would leave without having contemplated all of the artwork. They would be overcome by such a sense of panic that they couldn’t cope. But in the end, my preference is to focus on the fervour of life. However, if this almighty bomb really did fall on us, the world would pay a terrible price. We would regress thousands of years. People need to be aware of this.81 58
76. The successors of Raymond Picaud, Mr and Mrs Jean-François Picaud scrupulously went through the atelier archives in order to assist me in my research. For this, I am extremely grateful. 77. Etymologically speaking, this title is the only one to clearly announce the eschatological scope of the wall hanging, a gigantic harbinger of the end of time. 78. ‘All that will be left floating in space will be a white, sterile, enucleated snow. A broken stalk and ashes floating in the middle of an immense void. Oh, we will have earned the right to be proud of ourselves, of our Nothingness’, Lurçat’s manuscript, op. cit., p. 13-14 79. ‘It is just as it is with the flower. If you love a flower that lives on a star, it is sweet to look at the sky at night. All the stars are a-bloom with flowers…’ (The Little Prince, chapter XXVI) 80. Lurçat’s manuscript, 1963. 81. Id.
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Champagne 1959, wool, 4.38 × 6.97 m, Aubusson, atelier Tabard Frères et Sœurs [Cartoon produced by Jean-Luc Blum, 1958 – finished piece removed from the loom on 30 September 1959]
This wall hanging doesn’t need any commentary. Wine gushes out from the vat in sprays of joy, and it goes without saying, of life itself. What interested me here was to organize everything originating from the left corner—this happy ejaculation, if one will allow me the expression…90 That the painter himself recognized the futility of any commentary on Champagne 91 speaks volumes of the clarity of the symbolism used here. At the most, it should be noted that the theme of fertility, developed in colourful, teeming spurts, asserts itself with a prominence absent from some of the earlier pieces. Repeating the term ejaculation, already used in his commentary on Le Grand Charnier, Lurçat assigns Champagne the explicit task of illustrating the ‘gushing joys of wine […] of life itself’. In order to do so, Lurçat chose the motif of the multicoloured vat, inspired perhaps by Vendanges [The Harvest], a famous fifteenth-century tapestry preserved at the Musée National du Moyen Âge in Paris. Placed solidly in the soil, the vast container sends sprays of vivid butterflies into the air (these details were executed separately and then pinned onto the cartoon, according to JeanLuc Blum’s account), as well as clusters of grapes. Meanwhile, to the right, the trunk of life grows and flourishes, clothed in blue flames, a blue that reflects the sheer, inexpressible joy of morning when everything is reborn and everything seems possible. Of this festival of plant and animal colours and forms, the most daring motif, in the form of a bouquet, occupies the bottom right-hand corner of the composition and provides it with an overall sense of harmony. Discreet but striking, the motif of the inversed skull evokes the seventeenth-century vanitas genre, which was concerned with depicting the transience and futility of the human condition. This futility is combatted by the exaltation of the senses, as seen in the rest of the tapestry. The cosmic dimension remains, even if the flowers and butterflies are the only elements seen to sparkle against the immensity of the dark void. Beginning with Champagne, one may note the use of new techniques or ideas—the joyous use of colour, the consistent use of the large format and the preponderance of richly brocaded volumes—characteristics which all seem to pay tribute to the floral compositions of Monet’s later work. Let joy therefore be a possession within reach of mankind, let fear remain but make confidence the arm firmly brandished between our clenched fingers. Champagne, overflowing, excessive joy. Wine is nothing but a perverted liquid if the heart isn’t the vase.92
90
90. Id. 91. Champagne is the only tapestry from Le Chant du Monde to have been woven twice (the second one was made for the champagne producer, G.H. Mumm, in Reims). Furthermore, a detail from the cartoon (the vat) was specially reconstituted for Pierre Biro’s film, Le Chant du Monde de Jean Lurçat (1965). 92. Lurçat’s manuscript, 1963.
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Conquête de l’Espace 1960, wool, 4.43 × 10.18 m, Aubusson, atelier Tabard Frères et Sœurs [Cartoon produced by Paul-José Gosselin, Jean-Luc Blum, Francis Michelet, Pierre Delclaux, 1959 – finished piece removed from the loom on 14 May 1960]
It’s fairly obvious what this second-last wall hanging means—Conquête de l’Espace [Conquest of Space]. Sputnik or Observer.93 Man has risen and will continue to rise every day, in and through, sidereal space. The great silence, this dread of large spaces, the fear of the immensity filled with strange lights, moving and flashing lights, here are men apparently divided, but already reunited and bound by a higher wisdom, this dread will come some day and those who follow us will smile at it. We are just at the prelude; we are still just the explorers of the outer limits, the periphery. We can just about touch the edges of the sky, but we can still touch it all the same with our finger. We have already approached the horror of great voids and we have come back. Alive and already willing to do it again.94 In 1960, despite being under pressure from numerous commissions, Jean Lurçat oversaw the development and weaving of the cartoon for Conquête de l’Espace, destined to fill the eighth position of Le Chant du Monde. The work began in earnest on 2 December 1959. Inspired by sketches drawn by the master,95 the cartoon was produced for the most part by Paul-José Gosselin, Jean-Luc Blum, Francis Michelet and Pierre Delclaux. Two years previously, on 4 October 1957, the launch of sputnik, the first satellite in history, by Russia, had opened up the infinity of the cosmos to the imagination of man. Science and fiction According to the accounts of Paul-José Gosselin and Jean-Luc Blum, this piece is closer to L’Histoire comique des États et Empires de la Lune [The Other World: Comical History of the States and Empires of the Moon] by Cyrano de Bergerac96 than the Russian and American news reports on the conquest of space. In this tapestry, which is somewhat of an exception within the work as a whole, the Earth is depicted by bands containing brightly-coloured elements representative of each of the kingdoms, reminiscent of the work of Fernand Léger, who had only recently passed away. Here, an astronaut appears in a deliberately naïve spacecraft which was drawn by Paul-José Gosselin on 7 December 1959.97 In a race to conquer the skies, he executes a double arabesque as he shoots through space, constructing a tortuous labyrinth that challenges the genius and power of man. The proliferation of plants and insects, the sharpness of the arrows, the disorder of the cosmos, the cavalcade of clouds, the magma of colours, and the playful satellites: everything here illustrates the fertility of an imagination transcended by the subject under consideration. Once again, the theme of La Grande Menace reappears, transformed, modified, but still fertile. We may note the presence of the main kingdoms, inextricably bound together—the mineral and the animal, the plant and the human. The upper blue band on the left side is particularly revealing in this regard. Here, we see two hieratic profiles, those of a woman98 and a man, placed on either side of an owl. The owl itself rests on a bull’s head, which is rooted in the green band underneath, accented with red and yellow hues. The figures of the peacock and the cockerel, symbols of birth, loyalty and immortality, reveal the destiny of humanity in an indefinite time frame. An air of transcendence, existence beyond the physical realm, is evoked through the presence of the butterfly, but this is undermined by the tangles of the macabre snake. In the lower bands, life abounds—algae and plants, crustaceans and reptiles, insects and fish. The cosmonaut-centaur is propelled forward by one of those fabulous volcanoes already featured in La Grande Menace and L’Eau et le Feu. He has just reached the stratosphere, leaving behind him the periphery of the earth, a landscape filled with flowering plants in 100
93. Crossing out and replacing the word ‘Grapefruit’ on his manuscript with the word ‘Observer’, Lurçat associates the American satellite with its Soviet counterpart, a change that indicates the spirit of harmony and peace that underpins this wall hanging, to the detriment of part of the poet’s poetic fantasy. 94. Jean Lurçat’s manuscript, op. cit., p. 17. 95. Jean Lurçat, beginning on 3 December, would draw the silhouettes of all of the animals living on the earth’s surface.
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La Poésie 1962, wool, 4.43 × 10.15 m, Aubusson, atelier Tabard Frères et Sœurs [Cartoon produced by Jean-Luc Blum and Francis Michelet, 1961 – finished piece removed from the loom on 15 February 1962]
In La Poésie, the poet is there, present, dominant, surrounded by rays: he is fire, the begetter, the archer bedecked with chausses, attempting to get to the heart of things, the centre of the circle.104 The penultimate piece of Le Chant du Monde, La Poésie, woven in 1961, constituted the last fragment woven during Lurçat’s lifetime. The composition of this tapestry, the largest of the entire wall hanging, takes its inspiration from the themes developed in the Apocalypse d’Angers—the role of the centaur as observer, with hooves for feet and a bull’s head surmounted by a restless sun, positioned like St. John in the Apocalypse, under a burning dais. The rest of the surface is divided into equal rectangles destined to house the transfigured signs of the zodiac. The immensity that opens up to the right is therefore the reflection of the poet’s inner vision, just as the scenes of the Apocalypse were the fruit of St. John’s vision. An unusual contrast lies in the illegibility of the figure of the centaur—the poet is identified only by his poems—with the crude naturalism of the kneeling woman, an invention of the poet and the embodiment of inspiration. An organized but free symbolism Without a doubt, the zodiac is a forest filled with ease, futile deceptions, and precarious symbols. But the man who knows how to see, and believes, and enjoys knowledge, will find in these strange figures, water, earth, steam, minerals, these four corners enhanced or familiar, into which may be integrated the secrets, hopes, seeds and the actions of the man who sings with his face to the sun, his eyes staring straight into the light.105 The twelve signs of the Greek (literal meaning: ‘[circle of] little animals’) are presented in dynamic disorder: twelve free, autonomous, and sovereign poetic visions which refer to subjects already developed in the eight previous tapestries of Le Chant du Monde—humans, animals, plants … creatures that are all beneficial to the world. Opening the cycle, Aries, the ram, is the most obvious figure and is positioned right in the middle of the composition. His frame is surmounted to the right by the head of Taurus, the bull, an image reproduced nine times in the piece, white on black or black on white. As for Gemini, the third springtime constellation, the twins are represented as two hearts depicted by the figures of the moon and the sun, in the lower right-hand corner of the composition. Next are the summer signs. Cancer is placed immediately next to the poet, to the left of Aries; then Leo, the lion, to the right of the ram. Virgo, the virgin, can be seen twice. Kneeling in front of the poet, she also appears at the other extremity of the tapestry, fulllength and holding an egg, symbol of fertility, at her navel. In both illustrations, she has large breasts and is surrounded by an abundant floral environment. The signs of autumn and winter are also freely arranged. Libra occupies the central position at the extreme left section of the work, whereas the enigmatic Scorpio appears lower down, beneath Aries. As for Sagittarius, he is none other than the poet himself, carrying a single-stringed harp, which resembles more the archer’s weapon, without an arrow, than the rhapsodic instrument. It was pointed out to me that Rainer Maria Rilke was a Sagittarian. This is a coincidence because before meeting Rilke on the hills of Sceaux and in the gardens of the Hotel Byron, in my mind’s eye the archer was always comparable [to the poet], always able to hit his TARGET.106
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The first of the winter signs, Capricorn, is the most discreet of the symbols and appears in the upper right-hand section at the far end of the tapestry, represented with a rather basic profile, against a pale blue background. Finally, in the lower compartment, on either side of Scorpio, we find Aquarius, indicated by his floral exuberance, and Pisces, who closes the cycle, swimming at the poet’s feet.107
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Ornamentos sagrados 1966, wool, 4.36 × 10.15 m, Aubusson, atelier Tabard Frères et Sœurs [Cartoon produced by Jean-Luc Blum, Jean Perruchoux and Jean Bourdin, 1965 – finished piece removed from the loom on 10 March 1966]
Four years separate La Poésie from the final episode of Le Chant du Monde, the Ornamentos sagrados. Lurçat found the inspiration for the title in a Mexican monastery and the tapestry would only be completed after his death. In it, man is seen to receive the ‘sacred ornaments’ of the world which are concentrically and vertically arranged. In Lurçat’s final tapestry, rain falls from clouds streaked with stars and the interlacing sections of a giant stalk are illuminated by merging stars, while ardent sunrays and burning forests escape from the central sun that surrounds the artist’s bestiary, located above the bull’s snout. Here and there, we see sinister dark hands and drops of blood. To the left, fall the welcome drops from the Flood, ready to fertilize the string of planetatoms connected by a moving chain. To the right, the magic wand of stars opens up the frontiers to the cosmos. And in the background, appears the infinite blackness into which vulnerable man will one day dissolve… A sacred but indecipherable message In many of the writings devoted to Le Chant du Monde, it is significant that the perplexity of commentators when confronted with Ornamentos sagrados was caused less by the silence of the deceased artist than by the exceptional character of this visionary piece within Lurçat’s habitual universe. Certainly, Lurçat’s death coincided with the weaving of the work, but two features greatly enhance the mystery of Ornamentos sagrados— its appearance after a four-year break in the creation of the overall work (preceded by five years of intense activity) and the secret cultivated by the painter regarding its gestation.109 At the most, we know that during his Mexican voyage of 1965, Lurçat had been impressed by a visit to an exhibition of sacred colonial art and particularly by the art of the ancient Toltec capital, known under its Aztec name as Teotihuacan. At this last site notably, even more so than the pyramids of the sun and the moon, the Quetzalcoatl temple, the great pyramid sanctuary, captured the imagination of the artist. He was captivated by the extraordinary sculptures (feathered serpents, masks of the rain god, shells, and snails) but especially by the remaining traces of the colours (red for mouths, green for feathers) that had initially embellished these sculptures. If the religious signification of Ornamentos sagrados seems obvious, it is interesting to note that the piece refers a lot less to the rites of Christian colonialism than to those of Pre-Columbian beliefs. With its compartmentalized figures, the central sun—the original core, the supreme eye, the ideal target—refers to ancient forms of writing: early Chinese ideograms written on turtle shells (shell bone script), the Phaistos Disc from the Minoan era (although it has not been established that it contains an actual script), Mesoamerican calendars, etc. In the central position, the enigmatic figure in profile is the perfect illustration of Man’s mastery over his own destiny. This man is neither a helmsman nor a cosmonaut nor a poet, but a priest, or a priestess perhaps, of some vanished or nascent religion. Again, we find this idea of Man’s cosmic journey, which, although anchored in the four terrestrial elements, is a quest towards the starry future on the right side of the composition, a future that draws its energy from the world, represented on the left in the forms of swirling atoms. Finally, a kind of sacred phylactery, a strange inscription, closer to the Comte de Lautréamont and Saint-John Perse, or even Francis Ponge, than to Rilke or Whitman, captures the viewer’s gaze, inscribing the work in a duration that is no longer merely visual: ‘You will awake true, Lord of the two poles, Star with obsidian claws’. The meaning of this inscription seems, thus far, to have eluded historians. It is nevertheless worth 124
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THE ACQUISITION OF LE CHANT DU MONDE BY THE CITY OF ANGERS116 Long and complex negotiations All too rarely taken into account, Lurçat’s sudden and brutal death played an important role in the posthumous destiny of Le Chant du Monde. Although the artist had been suffering from a chronic heart condition for some time and had been undergoing treatment for this, there was little to predict on the eve of the 6 January 1966 that this was to be his last day on this earth. There was certainly very little to indicate that the artist’s death would come about so suddenly or unexpectedly.117 His passing therefore bestowed a testamentary dimension to Ornamentos sagrados, the tenth piece of the wall hanging—even before it was fully completed—a dimension that the artist had not originally intended. Art historians are often puzzled with regard to this last tapestry. Certainly the tragic circumstances of its realization have added to the tapestry’s enigma, but at the same time, they raise several questions as to the themes that might have been developed in any subsequent tapestries and indeed, to the artist’s own doubts regarding the destiny of his masterpiece. In reality, the aging artist enjoyed such popularity and unanimous admiration that he could allow himself the luxury of speculating on the future success of Le Chant du Monde. However, if one lends credence to Lurçat’s widow, the question of the preservation of the wall hanging in a single venue was an issue that had preoccupied the artist during the last years of his life. Under the guise of good sense, barely masking his apprehensions, the artist opted to hide behind the uncertainty of posterity, for surely this alone would be capable of determining the validity of his masterpiece. Lots of people ask me where Le Chant du Monde could be exhibited in its entirety. I always reply: It’s very simple. If this artwork has true human value, well then! We will always find a place for it … If in fifty, sixty years, Le Chant du Monde has been ratified by history, we will find a place for it. If it has no value, it will be thrown in the bin! In any case, I’m confident. In other words, the concern over the final site or resting place for the wall hanging shouldn’t fall to its author. If it were validated by posterity, then Le Chant du Monde would find a permanent exhibition space out of sheer necessity. If it were rejected by posterity, then it would have no place in public life and would end up ‘in the bin’! Because of his premature death, Jean Lurçat would never have to worry about this problem, which, after long and complex negotiations, would eventually be resolved by an agreement between Jean Lurçat’s widow and the city of Angers.
116. Here I would like to thank the staff of the Archives, Research and Photo Library of Angers, and particularly the director, Sylvain Bertoldi, for his precious assistance during my research making use of the documents conserved in his service. 117. On this matter, I consulted the expert advice of Béatrice Latscha-Angel, herself a doctor and daughter of Bella Angel, the doctor who tended to the artist on the last night of his life (interview dated Friday, 13 May 1988, Paris).
The position of Simone Lurçat In order to understand the position and role of Simone Lurçat in the sale of this formidable wall hanging, it is perhaps best to go back in time to Tuesday, 6 May 1986. On this particular day, in her private mansion at number 4 Villa Seurat in the fourteenth arrondissement of Paris, the artist’s widow welcomed the author of these lines, who had been working on his thesis on Jean Lurçat’s painted oeuvre for the previous three years. However, there was very little talk of painting over the course of the hours that followed. Visibly preoccupied, even stressed, Simone Lurçat, held in her hand a small number of typed sheets, containing the text destined for the catalogue of the next exhibition devoted to her deceased husband, entitled ‘Les Domaines de Jean Lurçat’, scheduled from 22 June to 31 December 1986 at the Musée Jean Lurçat in Angers. Instead of discussing Lurçat’s paintings, most of that day was devoted to proofreading and editing the writings for the aforementioned catalogue. That same day, Simone Lurçat had several telephone conversations with the then curator of the Musées d’Angers responsible for this important exhibition, Viviane Huchard.118 The most litigious point of their discussion concerned precisely the means of acquisition of Le Chant du Monde by Angers, two decades previously. It was important to Simone Lurçat that her opinion on this matter be stated in the most unequivocal of terms: 139
THE ISSUE OF THE CARTOONS Often overlooked in the history of the illustrious wall hanging, the cartoons of Le Chant du Monde were the subject of a note addressed by E. Dumont, the director of Buildings Services de la Ville d’Angers, on 18 November 1969 to Pierre Rouillard: Under the mayor’s order, a van from Buildings Services went to Saint-Céré (Lot) to take charge of the cartoons of Le Chant du Monde, on Saturday 15 November 1969. Mrs Lurçat handed the cartoons in her possession to our representative, in accordance with the attached slip written in her hand, i.e.: 9 cartoons. Nota: The cartoons for L’[E]au et le Feu weren’t found.126 The rest is stored in the storeroom adjoining the renovated room on the first floor of the Musée des Beaux-Arts. […] The Buildings Services mission has thus been completed and these cartoons are now the responsibility of the museums’ curator.
OPPOSITE
Hiroshima Man (cartoon), 1956–1957, drawing, 4.37 x 2.92 m, the Musées d’Angers. Champagne (cartoon), 1958, drawing, 4.40 x 7.17 m, the Musées d’Angers. PAGES 124-135
Champagne (cartoon), details.
A letter sent to Jean Lurçat from Suzanne Goubely on 25 October 1960 evokes the deterioration of the cartoon for L’Eau et le Feu, following a flood at the premises: Here is a list of your damaged cartoons, […] L’Eau et le Feu from Le Chant du Monde series has been saved but is quite damaged. I assure you that if you could have seen the scope of the damage and the situation in which we found ourselves up to this week, you would surely have been more understanding! The question remains as to the material condition and actual location of this cartoon, the only one missing from the collections of the Musée d’Angers.
126. At the time of writing, Isabelle Rooryck was kind enough to confirm that apparently these cartoons are still missing from the Tours-Saint-Laurent collection.
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JEAN LURÇAT - IMPORTANT BIOGRAPHICAL DATES 1892 Birth of Jean Lurçat on 1 July in the town of Bruyères (Vosges département, France).
Travels in the Maghreb, Greece, and Asia Minor, with Marthe, who weaves his canvases and whom he marries on 15 December.
1910–1911 Studies with Victor Prouvé in Nancy.
1925 Trip to Spain and the Maghreb; meets Marie Cuttoli, who is working to revive the art of tapestry making.
1912 Enrols at the Académie Colarossi in Paris and is a pupil of the engraver Naudin. Meets Rossane Soskice, Rainer Maria Rilke, and Élie Faure. 1914 Assistant to the fresco painter Jean-Paul Laffitte; goes on his first trip to Italy. Enlists in the infantry on 21 August; evacuated to Roanne hospital on 15 November. 1915 Spends a long period in Sens on furlough, during which he paints and draws. 1916 Wounded in the arm on 3 March, he leaves the front on sick furlough; holds his first exhibition at the Tanner Gallery (Zurich). 1917 First tapestry canvases, woven by his mother and by Marthe Hennebert. 1918 Travels to Ischia and Perugia. 1919 Trip to Switzerland with Rilke and Jeanne Bucher. Discovers Walt Whitman’s poetry. 1920 Lives in Paris with Marthe. Exhibition at the Maison d’Art Alsacienne in Strasbourg. 1921 Creates stage sets for the Pitoëffs. Sojourn in Germany with Walter Hasenclever. 1922 Holds two exhibitions in Paris and his first articles are published in the Parisian press. 1923 Travels to Spain. 1924 Contract with the art dealer Étienne Bignou.
1926 Interrupts his travels to devote himself to painting. 1927 Experiences great success as a painter; divorces Marthe on 18 November. 1923-1927 Trip to Spain, North Africa, Greece, and Asia Minor. 1928 A period of profound pessimism. Exhibits his works in New York, Moscow, and Berlin. Travels to Greece. 1929 Travels to Morocco. Ranked by international critics as one of the finest painters of his generation. 1930-1931 Intense pictorial production (around two hundred canvases painted in just two years). Triumphant exhibitions in Paris, London, New York, Philadelphia, Brussels, and Berlin. Production of tapestry canvases woven by Marthe. 1931 On 12 May, marries Rossane, the great love of his life and a talented sculptor. 1932 Lives in Switzerland with Rossane and her son, Victor; almost never paints. 1933 Activist at Russie d’aujourd’hui, which supports the Soviet regime. Is given the Barnes Award in Philadelphia. 1934 Trips to America, Switzerland, and Russia. Exhibits in Chicago, Philadelphia, Moscow, and Kiev. 1935 Participates in the Querelle du réalisme (‘Quarrel of Realism’). 167
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL RESOURCES & SUGGESTED READING Archival documents Angers, Municipal Archives: the unlisted file of the acquisition of Le Chant du monde – files 1571 W 75 and 76: definitive acquisition, acceptance by the city (including the town council deliberations, correspondence, legal documents) and valuation (documents from L’Action culturelle, 1967-1994) – Series R, file 86 Paris, villa Seurat: personal archives of Mrs Simone Lurçat; consulted during the latter’s lifetime, currently undergoing cataloging
Collectif, Le Chant du Monde, Jean Lurçat, Marseille, Musée des Beaux-Arts – Palais Longchamp, 1965 Collectif, Hommage à Jean Lurçat: Le Chant du Monde, Le Havre, Nouveau Musée du Havre, 1966 “Angers possède et présente un nouveau trésor: Le Chant du Monde de Jean Lurçat.” Angers, notre ville, Vol 2, 1968
Abbaye d’En-Calcat: Suzanne Goubely archives
Laurent, Jean-Pierre. “Le Chant du Monde.” La Revue Française, Supplement vol 219, April-May 1969
Galerie Picaud, Aubusson: Raymond Picaud archives
Jean Lurçat, Le Chant du Monde, Angers. Angers, Siraudeau, 1980
Creuse Departmental Archives: Tabard Fonds
De Loisy, Françoise. Jean Lurçat (1892-1966). Conquête de l’Espace, Musées d’Angers, 1996
Books Lurçat, Jean. Le Travail dans la Tapisserie du Moyen Âge. Geneva: Pierre Cailler, 1947
Denizeau, Gérard. L’Apocalypse de Jean Lurçat, le Verbe visualisé. Le Mans, CAJF, 2001
Lurçat, Jean. Le Bestiaire de la Tapisserie du Moyen Âge. Geneva: Pierre Cailler, 1947 Lurçat, Jean. Tapisserie française. Paris: Bordas, 1947
Mensch, Bernhard. Der Gesang der Welt. Oberhausen, Ludwig Galerie Schloss, 2001 Escat, Monique. Jean Lurçat, Le Grand Charnier, carton, Saint-Laurent-les-Tours, Conseil général du Lot, 2004
Clavel, Denis. Les Tapisseries du Chant du Monde. Le Chant du Monde [brochure], Introduction by Jean Lurçat. Annecy: Gardet, 1963 Musées d’Angers, Piot Printers. 2011 Preface Lurçat, Jean. Preface to Défense et illustration d’une tapisserie française vivante. Tapisserie de l’Apocalypse. Angers: Au Masque d’or, 1955 Articles and catalogues Malvy, Martin. “Sur les murs d’un café souillaguais, le maître Jean Lurçat a repensé les douze signes du Zodiaque.” Sud-Ouest 13 September 1960 Lurçat, Jean. “Le Chant du Monde.” Les Lettres Françaises Vol 1000. October 1964 Boudaille, Georges. “Jean Lurçat a tissé dans la laine la grande menace de notre temps.” Les Lettres françaises. (24-30 July 1964) Darle, Juliette. “L’épopée magistrale de Jean Lurçat.” L’Humanité 28 July 1964 Farkas, Jean-Pierre. “Jean Lurçat dénonce la grande menace de la bombe atomique.” L’Humanité 23 September 1964 Faré, Michel and Jean Lurçat. Le Chant du Monde et œuvres récentes de Jean Lurçat. Annecy, Musée des arts décoratifs: Gardet, 1964 “Le Chant du Monde, Jean Lurçat”. Le Courrier de l’Unesco 1 November 1964
Gignoux, Sabine. “Les deux Apocalypses d’Angers. ” La Croix 25 January 2013 Film Le Chant du Monde de Jean Lurçat. Dir. Pierre Biro. Prod. Roger Mercanton. Téléfilms Paris, 1965 References to Le Chant du Monde in: Société des anglicistes de l’enseignement supérieur. Raison et sur-raison. Paris: Didier, 1981 Dingle, Christopher and Nigel Simeone. Olivier Messiaen: Music, Art and Literature. Farnham: Ashgate, 2007 Kohler, Élodie. Musée d’Annecy, 150 ans d’histoire des collections. Lyon: Lieux Dits, 2010 Carole Bauguion, ed. Rivages frontière tremplin tension. Paris: L’Harmattan, 2010 Lucas, Nicole and Vincent Marie. La Carte dans tous ses états. Paris: Le Manuscrit, 2011 In passing: In the Petit Futé guide book series, the books on Angers and the Pays de la Loire contain a brief description of Le Chant du Monde. 173
TABLE OF CONTENTS FOREWORD BY ARIANE JAMES-SARAZIN
4
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
5
PREFACE
6 6 6 7
The literary influence Variations on a theme The force of vision THE WORK: SOURCES, GENESIS AND REALIZATION
L’Apocalypse d’Angers The spring of poetry Rilke: a distinctive inner voice The visionary grandiloquence of Whitman The evolution of Lurçat’s symbolism A great, unfinished design The dream of a collective work finally realized On the fringes of Le Chant du Monde An unfinished epic On the threshold of the masterpiece, the artist’s discourse A SONG IN TEN VERSES
La Grande Menace The mirage of catastrophe The Ark in troubled waters An ambiguous message L’Homme d’Hiroshima Le Grand Charnier The body of distant influences La Fin de Tout L’Homme en gloire dans la Paix Between Good and Evil, Life and Death: the choices of man L’Eau et le Feu Champagne Conquête de l’Espace Science and fiction An eminently textile artwork La Poésie An organized but free symbolism The chaos of life in the face of destiny Ornamentos sagrados A sacred but indecipherable message A time for renewed consideration THE ACQUISITION OF LE CHANT DU MONDE BY THE CITY OF ANGERS
9 9 12 13 15 17 18 19 20 20 22 25 26 28 30 30 36 46 46 58 64 64 78 90 100 100 101 112 112 113 124 124 129
Long and complex negotiations The position of Simone Lurçat Initial optimistic negotiations Quarrels and uncertainty The solution of an association The final phase of negociations The artwork in its new home The Hôpital Saint-Jean: the perfect setting for the artwork Le Chant du Monde on exhibition outside Angers
139 139 139 141 144 145 147 150 152 153
THE ISSUE OF THE CARTOONS
154
JEAN LURÇAT – IMPORTANT BIOGRAPHICAL DATES
167
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL RESOURCES AND SUGGESTED READING
173