EXHIBITIONS EXHIBITIONS EXHIBITIONS EXHIBITIONS EXHIBITIONS EXHIBITIONS EXHIBITIONS EXHIBITIONS EXHIBITIONS EXHIBITIONS
APRIL 1 - MAY 19 2023
SAINT MARTIN CHEVREUSE CHURCH
GRATALOUP
The 14 Stations of the Cross
Colors and Symbols
EXHIBITIONS EXHIBITIONS EXHIBITIONS EXHIBITIONS EXHIBITIONS EXHIBITIONS EXHIBITIONS EXHIBITIONS EXHIBITIONS EXHIBITIONS
On vacation in Sceautre with Denis Sloan, GRATALOUP draws the black basalt rock on which the village is built and in particular, his friend's house. This rock was the place of celebration of pagan cults. The Christian faith erected a Calvary there. The latter has disappeared but iron ramps, partly destroyed by lightning, remained in 1975 on the side of the mountain.
GRATALOUP is inspired by this mineral landscape, made of prisms, faults and other geometric figures, which he has already evoked in other works of this period.
He will thus begin the construction of the fourteen stations of the Way of the Cross, which he will continue until 1985, that is to say ten years. They were exhibited many times: in 1991, in Chevreuse, on the occasion of the “Musicales de Chevreuse”, organized by the mayor at the time, Philippe Dugué; in 1992, at the Saint-Louis cathedral in Versailles; in 2002, at the Chapelle de la Pitié Salpêtrière in Paris; in 2003, at the Chapelle de la Trinité in Lyon; then in 2006, within the premises of the Bayer companies in Leverkusen (Germany).
Since the death of the painter, the Stations of the Cross has been exhibited at the Church of Saint-Martin of Chevreuse during the Easter holidays.
The formal invention of the Stations of the Cross
“I now use folding on large formats. It is indeed because of the marouflages, of the paper on the canvas that the technique of tearing folds appeared. These folds bring a more intense dramatic vision. Thus on the three canvases, where Jesus falls three times, the fold of the first canvas occupies the diagonal. The second is intermediate with the other two. For the third canvas, the fold is almost horizontal. As for the color, it intensifies from dark red to scarlet red. Thus for each station the paper will play its role of “enhancement” of a dramatic impression. »
