« Benedictines writing in the cloister »By Paul Baudoüin. Could Pétain’s minister Paul Baudoüin have painted this picture during his penance after the Liberation? Fake. This cloister would rather be the work of a less conspiratorial Paul Baudoüin, painter of the XIXe century which, to be from Rouen, does not seem to have succumbed to mad Impressionism (at least on that one occasion) with its somewhat dark cloister and its tonsured monks. “Study for a mural at the municipal library of Rouen in 1892”, this sketch is very popular with its studious monks and for its modernity. Because, swap these Benedictines for a handful of brothers from the Christian schools and wouldn’t you see the large gallery of the recently renovated Saint-Maclou aître? … That makes you want to go for a walk.
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Made in Toula. Superb office set with a perpetual calendar, the object, created in the Imperial Armory of Tula in Russia around 1800, recalls a sailor’s instrument or an artistic representation of the terrestrial globe. It awakens in me the scientific soul and the child who has only one desire, seize it to manipulate it and understand how it works. It also gives off a certain romanticism, the desire to seize his pen to continue an epistolary exchange with loved ones, but distant. The desire to blacken pages of stories that are sometimes crazy, sometimes sad, but always true. A beautiful, delicate object that I would like to be able to contemplate more closely.
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AT the air. A plate, an everyday object that has become almost ordinary to everyone. However, “Tendrement”, this so-called “aria” music plate from 1740, gave me such a lively emotion that I was able to plunge back for a few moments into my childhood memories. It illustrates a musical fiber, which I cultivated thanks to my hours of music theory and guitar on Wednesday afternoon. This work also symbolizes in my eyes the « sweet moments that I spent near my dear [Maman à dresser la table fleurie du dimanche] », in the manner of the words of this popular air of the XVIIIe. A beautiful journey through time to be found at the Museum of Ceramics in Rouen.
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Engraved shell. This object caught my eye and speaks to me to revive precious memories. Already, there are at least two nautiluses in my parents’ library, one big and one smaller. They have always been there, alongside an ostrich egg brought back from Africa by a traveling uncle. When you wear them in your ear, you can hear the sea … But above all, this endemic fossil of the Pacific Ocean preserved at the Natural History Museum is chiseled with an evocative representation of a landscape of New Caledonia so dear to my heart. Also, this room, I could see it in my library to me.
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In block letters. That a journalist suggests removing letters from museums from the reserves, nothing very surprising you will say to me. And yet, the thirty-something who writes these lines has a hard time even conceiving the idea that his predecessors were able to achieve the technical feat of putting out a newspaper every day with such means that appear today. rudimentary. Already, the photo films seem to him to date from two hundred years ago … So, you see, printing letters stored in lockers, also called “scraps”, which marked our journalistic vocabulary. It is therefore without hesitation that we must choose these beautiful letters to tell the younger generations about the world before … Ten thousand leagues from the Internet.
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“The Conflans-Sainte-Honorine Tugs »By Pierre Hodé. It is on this work by cubist Pierre Hodé that the eye stops and the finger clicks! Dominoes in single file, cards with a queen of spades and an ace of hearts on display, a blurry-faced man smoking a pipe behind the bar and a glass of wine. The character grasps the bottle … The self-taught painter born in Rouen in 1889 invites us to the café, and in transparency, through the window, we see a bridge and “the tugs of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine”, name given to the ‘artwork. The nostalgic eye stops and the feverish finger clicks on this canvas proposed for “The Visitors’ Room” because that is precisely what is causing the Covid-19 to disappear: no more belote contests, no more dominoes, no more tobacco in cafes and soon no more bars at all …
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Pledge of love. Funny discovery in 2012 by an individual from Oissel; nearly 950 pieces, two of which are in gold and above all four rings dating from around 1,350 to 1,400. One of them is offered to visitors, it evokes « courteous love – where knights and ladies offered each other pledges of their love, like rings – which constituted a code of conduct associating humility, courtesy and devotion of the lover to his lady, on the model of vassalic obedience. » For me, it’s a whole part of my adolescence that resurfaces when I shut myself up to read the Arthurian legend, dreaming of Grail, Guinevere and Camelot.
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How to vote?
to choose his favorite objects or paintings among a hundred selected. The most popular will be exhibited from February 6
to May 16, 2021 at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Rouen. To vote, go to www.lachambredesvisiteurs.com – – .
