Epiphanies »of Augustin Frison-Roche at the Bernardins college

A legendary forest with green and coppery green foliage: the seven panels that guide the visitor to the exhibition location come into correspondence with the Gothic colonnade of the Great Hall of the College of Bernardins, Cultural and Artistic Center of the Diocese of Paris . By along them, we think of the verses of Baudelaire “There, everything is only Order and Beauty/Luxury, calm and voluptuousness …” And we enter the dream universe of the painter, Augustin Frison-Roche.

In the old sacristy, then, where other works by this 37 -year -old artist are exhibited, an even more shimmering series, all gold and shades of azure, tells the creation of the world. Seven panels again, one for each day, connected to each other by details of the drawing, dazzle the eyes. “The wonder is at the heart of my work,” he said simply. I am leaving for this feeling experienced in childhood in front of the crèche. »»

Poetic images

“Augustin Frison-Roche illustrates the theology of the beauty of the Fathers of the Church”, explains in the catalog of the exhibition the writer Christiane Rancé, for whom these paintings invite to contemplate “speech, mysteriously represented”. If it is not only inspired by religious themes, the painter is not afraid to rub shoulders with biblical texts to draw poetic images; nor to sing the nature of which he magnifies the sacred dimension. Many of his works are orders for religious buildings, hence the large formats. He thus made in 2020 a monumental altar of the apocalypse for the cathedral of Saint-Malo.

Here, for the Bernardins, he designed a huge Adoration of mages, surrounded by Baptism of Christ and Canae de Can. “I worked on this theme of a sudden demonstration of transcendence by the star, the dove, the wine …” he said to explain the plural title of the exhibition: “epiphanies”.

The grape is a spiral of gold which will soon fill the guests of the guests in front of the bride and groom of Cana, while the Virgin, in the background, speaks to Jesus who remains out of scope. An assumed choice: “I was formatted by the famous painting of Véronèse which placed Christ in the center, in a prefiguration of the Last Supper (Les Noces de Cana, editor’s note). Then I reread the Gospel and that’s how I could change angle and stand out. »»

The painter pays tribute to the symbolists

Augustin Frison-Roche does not however deny, far from it, the influence of the great masters. His works are often made on wooden panels, like medieval altarpieces. This support, but also the presence of hieratic and golden angels, evoke the eastern icons. And to give depth, the artist was inspired by the technique of overlapping the layers of oil dear to the Flemish primitives.

“However, I dilute my pigments as in ink,” he explains. Thus, the veins of wood appear under the drawings, which themselves let themselves be seen through the other, by transparency. “It is a wonderful, but long process,” he smiles.

It also pays tribute to the symbolists – Gustave Moreau, Odilon Redon especially – as well as to the English pre -rads of the end of the 19th century: the same impression of a dream promenade, the same enchanted vision of nature, the same rich exotic colors …

On the shoulders of these predecessors and the contemporary painter of religious art François Peltier with whom he formed, Augustin Frison-Roche continues to move forward with this ambition both modest and disproportionate: “I try to make my Creation seems obvious, as if it had always been there. »»