Until 31 December, the Maison-Rouge of Saint-Jean-du-Gard exhibits the 42 canvases on the theme of the Beast of Gévaudan made by the painter.
What is the starting point of this series dedicated to the Beast of Gevaudan?
I have a friend, Guy Brun, who runs the Margeride ecomuseum and he told me about a project for the House of the Beast. I painted the 42 paintings and then Guy Brun had to resign. And the beast, it stayed on my ass! There have been several exhibitions in Switzerland, in Turin, in Nîmes, in Viviers. We made a book and a film, then the paintings were bought by the town hall of Saint-Étienne-de-Lugdarès.
A town in the Ardèche, the scene of the first crime committed by the Beast …
There is a little girl there, Jeanne Boulet, who was killed. She is the first victim of the Beast and the priest did not want to bury him in the holy land, because it was not necessary to displease King Louis XV, king by the grace of God, while the Beast was called the devil. During the presentation of the exhibition in Saint-Étienne, the Bishop of Viviers was there and we talked about this little Jeanne Boulet. So the bishop said a forgiveness mass on a beautiful summer day. It only took three hundred years.
legend has it that in the place where he died, in Sogne-d’Auvers, the grass did not grow back
Does the story of the Beast implicitly draw the relationship between the powerful and the peasant?
On the one hand, the king, Louis XV, and this beast that kills a hundred children in three years. What it was? We do not know. If the Beast kills, it is because the Auvergne have committed great sins and it is a divine punishment. But power was under control after the dispatch of 3,000 dragons and his harquebus bearer, Antoire de Bauterne, who killed a large wolf on September 21, 1765. He presents Him to the king as the Beast and the Dragons retreat. But the Beast leaves again. He kills a little girl near the town of Jean Chastel. We are afraid of this man, but we invite him to cry. He had three bullets blessed with the lead from the medals of the Black Virgin of Le Puy and took up post in the woods of Tenezeyre. The Beast advances and he shoots. He presents her to the king who, indisposed by the smell of carrion, drives him away. After that there are no more victims and the legend has it that where he died, in Sogne-d’Auvers, the grass does not grow back.
Then paint seven hypotheses and complete your story with the characters presenting a mirror so that everyone observes their reflection …
What is the Beast? It’s the beast inside, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Night of the Hunter. In the end, the forgiveness is there and all the characters dance on the four seasons. It’s the end of the story. Later, I started painting my vision of the Gospels. The myth of the Beast then serves the theme of duplicity in man … I believe we are like that. We are all angels or devils. So what do you want? We must be satisfied. And you have to forgive yourself on your part, otherwise you hang yourself on the fig tree. We committed suicide. We get sick. Or we forgive ourselves for what we carry with us, our dark and bestial side. Hence the mirror.
Reading Henry Pourrat
What were your sources?
There have been many books, including the very poetic one by Henri Pourrat. To start, I dove in and went to Auvergne. The text accompanies each of your tables. Why this union of writing and image? In the Bible it is said that in the beginning was the Word and that the Word became flesh. I think he also created an image of himself. Religions are often very afraid of images and painters, in some religions, have been prohibited from making images. I don’t know how it happened. I painted things that were a little dark when I started out, and then I started telling stories because the picture wasn’t enough. Need to clarify. Things are said in pictures and others in writing.
What’s the point of telling such an old story?
My job as a painter and artist is to pass on the memory. And talk about the inside, about what we carry with us. The last painting on which I work represents Bertolt Brecht, who, at the end of Arturo Ui’s The Resistable Ascension, writes that “one must be vigilant because the womb from which the unclean beast emerged is still fertile”. Here you are. Here it is, the Beast. We must at least say it and pass it on. What some artists do. I’ve been censored a lot. Today I am 85 years old, I listen to Bach in my spot and I have already given. But since we have chosen to incarnate, it is up to us to change things a bit.
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