Auguste Rodin Cathedral
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A novel
Cathedral by Joris-Karl Huysmans was first published in 1898.
This erudite and complex novel, at the same time, revolves around the character of Durtal, probable avatar of the author, who converted to Catholicism a few years earlier.
The exploration of Chartres Cathedral being only a mirror held up to the torments of a man who hesitates to devote himself fully to religious life, and who seeks within these walls the rest of the soul and the answer to the questions that torment him.
The exhibition brings together drawings, copperplate engravings and prints executed by the artist Charles Jouas (1866-1942) and having served for two illustrated editions of the novel in 1909 and 1919, the original manuscript of which was recently acquired by the City of Chartres.
A sculpture
Auguste Rodin created this sculpture entitled “The Cathedral” in 1908, in a particular context which saw artists appropriating this monument which crystallized the Western imagination: “ all our France is in the cathedrals, as all of Greece is in the Parthenon. »
It would seem that this work only received its title a few years after its completion; probably after 1914, when Rodin published his work The Cathedrals of France.
The sculptor had already made the link between the ribbed vaults and hands that come together to prayeven if it cannot be a question here of hands in prayer, since the identical arrangement in parallel of the thumbs shows that it is a question of two right hands placed opposite.
A fascinating work, whose verticality, lightness, delicacy and contrast recall thegothic architecture.
A box
These exhibitions will be the perfect opportunity to discover or rediscover this former episcopal palace and its buildings from the 15th, 17th and 18th centuries, listed as a Historic Monument, as well as its collections of works of art from the 13th to the 20th century.
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