Between 1930 and 1964, Raymond Isidore, a modest municipal employee of the city of Chartres, undertook to decorate his house and the adjoining garden; thus creating a monument of naive architecture and Art Brut*: the Maison Picplate.
By Rosa Tandjoui (CulturAdvisor)
–
Raymond Isidore
Born on September 8, 1900 in Chartres from a modest family of eight children, he would have lost his sight very young and recovered miraculously, at the age of 10, by kissing the foot of the Notre-Dame pillar in the cathedral of Chartres.
He will do his military service in the 3rd colonial artillery regiment in Vincennes, then in Germany, where he will be a gunner; even getting a certificate of good conduct. Now exercising the profession of moulder, he married, in 1924, Adrienne Rolland, a widowed seamstress, mother of 3 children, 11 years her senior and from whom he would have no children.
At that time, he became closer to communist ideas, read the newspaper l’Humanité daily, regularly took part in demonstrations and, in 1926, became a steam tram driver on the Chartres-Angerville line.
On December 24, 1929, he acquired a piece of fallow land, without any amenities, rue des Rouliers (currently rue du Repos) and started alone, the construction of a small house. The family moved there in 1931 and in 1932 he added two adjoining lots which he transformed into a vegetable garden and orchard.
Completely invested in the construction and fitting out of his house, he lives off odd jobs, in particular that of gardener, but his difficult character begins to cause him harm, especially when he is again offered a job as a conductor (trams being replaced by buses) and refuses for fear of hitting pedestrians.
In 1935, he was hired at the garbage dump for the city of Chartres and began to collect ceramic and porcelain debris, which he assembled to create the first mosaics that would adorn the interior and exterior of his house.
This frantic quest for pieces of broken dishes leads the inhabitants of the district to nickname him picnic. Increasingly unstable professionally, he is described by those close to him as someone simple, gentle and conscientious, but who can get into a rage if he thinks he is the victim of injustice.
In the 1940s, attacks of dementia forced him to undergo numerous psychiatric stays and in 1949, after yet another altercation with one of his superiors, he was transferred as a sweeper to the cemetery of Saint-Chéron.
It began to be publicized in the 1950s; meeting Pablo Picasso in 1954 and photographed by Robert Doisneau in 1956. The same year, he bought neighboring land and erected a chapel and a summer house there, which he entirely covered with mosaic frescoes. In the early 1960s, his health deteriorated, he was interned many times, eventually dying on September 7, 1964.
The Picplate House
–
Bought by the city of Chartres in 1981; it was classified as a Historic Monument in 1983 and received the 20th century Heritage architectural label in 2017.
–
From the entrance, colorful mosaics cover every corner of the walls, floors, interior and exterior ceilings; proof if any of the limitless creativity of Raymond Isidore.
The wandering begins with the main house, then the chapel, the dark courtyard, the summer house, the garden and the tomb of the spirit.
An essential visit!
*Naïve architecture and Art brut refer to the constructions, productions and works of self-taught people without artistic training, who do not respect, voluntarily or not, the rules and canons of the discipline in question.
–
