Alfred Manessier

Alfred Manessier (December 5th 1911, Saint-Ouen in the Somme - † 1993, buried in the cemetery of its native village) is a nonfigurative painter French, one of the Masters of the News École of Paris

Life and work

Alfred Manessier is born the December 5th 1911 with Saint-Ouen (Somme).

After studies with the School of the Art schools of Amiens then to the 3Ecole Nationale Sup3erieure of the Art schools of Paris, after an initiation with the Architecture and the Fresco at the time of a short passage to the Academy Ranson, it is devoted to the Peinture, before discovering the Tapisserie and the Vitrail.

In the early works, the influences of the Impressionism, late Cubism, Surrealism and Fauvisme are felt. However, like all the great painters, Manessier was put initially at the school of the Masters: Tintoret, Titien, Renoir, and especially Rembrandt whose spirit is found in a self-portrait. And it is while being exerted to copy their works with the museum of Louvre that it becomes acquainted with Jean Moal.

But the work of Manessier is spread fully as from the moment when he discovers the need for devoting to the nonfigurative Peinture. Near to the Abstract art, it is however preferable to describe it as nonfigurative painter, as we will see it. Works of Manessier are indeed deeply anchored in reality, even when they are not directly allusive. They are never free constructions: they are always organized around more or less explicit references to political places, events, meditations on the crowned texts. The Salve Regina of 1945 representative of is discovered this particular agreement between the significant emotions and forms.

Deeply impregnated as of its childhood by the landscapes and the light of the Bay of Somme, it devotes many fabrics to the meanders and reflections of the river, with the Picardy littoral , the ports of North: morning Space (1949), the North Sea (1954), Neap tide (1954), To remember bay of Somme (1979). Certain studies for the landscapes of bay of Somme, for the Low tide find the delicate colors of works of earliest youth: in such study of 1979, reappear tons them subtle which takes water in the Slack , oil on paperboard of the the Twenties, worthy, like good of others, of a Johan Barthold Jongkind.

Nature is present also in works born of its glances on the Provence, the Spain, the Beauce, the Netherlands, the Canada: Small Dutch landscape (1956), pastoral Joy (1974), Spanish Ground , Towards Jativa , Eskimo Landscape , Sun of winter , Frosted , Alleluia of the fields , Mancha of October, April in Beauce , Harvests I and II . Manessier travels much and impregnates natural spectacles until in detail. Remarkable observer it finds a long time afterwards elements which struck it, and it transcribes them with a rare fidelity. Sensitive to all the events during which the man seeks to meurtrir the man, Manessier is, as of its youth, attentive with the tragedies of the 20th century, the rise of the Nazism to the assassination of Mgr Romero, while passing by the repression of Hungarian rising, the lawsuit of Burgos. This suffering is found in tormented tables, contrasting with the serene evocation of nature. Requiem for November 56 (1956), Homage to Martin Luther King (1968), Homage to Mgr Romero (1980), the lawsuit of Burgos , Vietnam Vietnam , on September 11th, 1973 , For the mother of one condemned to dead .

In 1943, Manessier accompanies the writer Camille Bourniquel with the monastery by Soligny-the-Trap door for a retirement. During this stay, a deep spiritual transformation is achieved in him, and it is penetrated by a faith which will leave it never again. Its work will be some marked on the set of themes plan as on the stylistic level. Its meditation on the large texts of the Christianisme cannot be transposed in the traditional representations. Nonthe figuration is essential to give a form sensitive to its emotions. This Christianity, always related to a sincere humanism, is expressed in many works: the Passion according to Holy Matthieu (1948), the crown of spines (1950), the night of Gethsémani (1952), the series of the Passions (1986). The topic of Easter is privileged, death, for Alfred Manessier, being able to be thought and evoked only in relation to the Résurrection.

Interested by the tapestry as of the end of the the Forties ( the construction of the Arch , 1947, the forest in January , 1949), it is the meeting of the couple of tisserands Plasse Caisne which encourages Manessier to be devoted more to this support. Monumental works, prodigiously rich from colors until in detail will be born: Gregorian chant (1963 - 1969), Towards underwater space (1964), underwater Space (1964, Anthem with the joy (1966), the joy (1968), twelve hangings on the topic of the spiritual Canticles of Holy Jean of the Cross (1969 - 1971), the reception , (1984), between much of others.

The stained glass, about which to him Georges Rouault in 1947 speaks, also holds a major place in the artistic production of Manessier. If it uses the flagstone of glass in the modern architecture, as with Hem (Northern), it is the technique of ancient glass and lead, without greyness, that it adopts in old architectures. Very respectful of the professionals, it knew to put at listening tisserands Plasse Caisne which made it profit to know to them and of their experiment. In the same way, it was placed at the school of the glass Masters, like François Lorin, in order to perfect his final esthetic choices. It is this deep knowledge of the various technical possibilities which made it possible Manessier to deploy its art in the fields of the painting of the Aquarelle, of the Lithographie, the tapestry and the stained glass.

Its interest impassioned for the stained glass leads it to create with Jean Bazaine Association for the Defense of the Stained glasses of France following the scandal of the abusive restorations of the Notre-Dame cathedral of Chartres. The attacks with the works of art are, indeed, for him as many crimes against the men, against the life of their creators which traverses us when we contemplate them, against the men to which they is offered so that they can be nourished some.

The first order was that of the stained glasses of the church Holy-Agathe of Bréseux in 1948. The installation of these canopies constituted a founding document for the sacred art: afterwards many polemics, the nonfigurative stained glass took seat in the churches, recognized worthy to enrich the monument without denaturing the crowned function of it. Manessier also constructed the stained glasses of the crypt of the cathedral of Essen, the crypt of the Saint-Gereon church to Cologne, of the churches of Bremen, the cathedrals of Freiburg (Swiss) and of the Saint-Dié-of-Vosges, the churches of Pontarlier and Locronan (Brittany), etc This aspect of his work finds his apogee and his completion in the canopies of the church of the Holy Sepulchre of Abbeville, whose installation was almost finished for the inauguration in May 1993. In this last place, more than in any other old building, it knew to make so that its works are not essential on the detriment architecture, and go even until underlining some and sometimes revealing the esthetic interest. It shares this capacity to rather offer to the stones churches a new birth than to make of it a framework relegated to the second plan, a decoration without heart, with his friends Jean Bazaine, Jean Moal and Elvire Jan which was on several occasions his/her collaborators in major achievements.

The work of Manessier was crowned by international prizes. Selected for the Biennale de Venise in 1950, the Grand Prix of Painting is allotted to him in 1962, whereas Giacometti obtained the Grand Prix of sculpture. Manessier is the last French painter thus rewarded, after Matisse, Jacques Villon, Raoul Dufy… He exposed works of large size on the topics of Passion, of Easter.

In 1953, it receives the First Price of Painting to Biennial of Sao Paulo, and in 1955 the Grand Prix of Painting of the Institut Carnegie of Pittsburgh.

The July 28th 1993, it is victim of a road accident in the Loiret, and it dies the 1993 at the hospital of Orleans the Source. The August 5th, its funeral takes place in the church of the Holy Sepulchre d' Abbeville. It is buried in its native village.

On its rest remains unfinished Our friend death according to Mozart , ultimate pictorial meditation on a passage of a letter of Mozart to his father.

Forms

A radical esthetic, contemporary change of orientation of its conversion, makes him take seat, with the Salve Regina of 1945, among the great names of the nonfigurative painting of the 20th century.

An abstract work (a table of Mondrian, for example) cannot be a work of art crowned, since it refers to anything else only to itself. Nonfigurative work is also sign of itself, like any work of art, but the refusal of the direct representation of an event lets filter the indices of what touched the sensitivity of the artist. It is because it cannot speak, but that it has nevertheless to say, that Manessier begins a table and seeks to express the unutterable one which suddenly lived it. The meeting with crowned is not any more described (description often leading to a desacralization), but is expressed. At FRA Angelico crowned interlaces itself in the scenes, which the evolution of painting at the 20th century does not allow any more, with some notable exceptions, like Georges Rouault. Nonfigurative art authorizes an opening on inexpressible the fulgurance meeting with God. And if Manessier extends this choice to the treatment of nature and the human facts, it is that its sensitivity makes him perceive that there is in nature something which exceeds the vision first, that there is in the man something which exceeds the man. " All is full with dieux" , Héraclite said.

Works of Manessier are initially structured by the " roast cubiste" , that they are Sacred art or evocations of nature.

Tables: Passion according to Saint Matthieu (1948), night Meditation (1952), the 6th hour (1957 - 1958), without forgetting the series of the watercolours Bay of Somme (1955).

Tapestries: the Christ with the column (1948), marine signals (1952).

Stained glasses: church of Bréseux (1948 - 1949).

Tables of bay of Somme of 1953 - 1954 are ordered according to a very marked geometry, memories of the sinuosities of the river. Monochromic, dark or clear broad outlines, encircle tons them delicate and almost pastel of the gleamings of water. These structures will be again exploited in the Eighties, with a richer pallet.

During the Sixties, with the great triptych the Print (1962), the distribution of the colors becomes more complex, being organized according to diagonal, oblique lines. Contours, formerly underlined, make place with burstings of light. Initially taken in broad black networks, the colors are released some until enclosing them in their turn. The rates/rhythms are varied, even in resurgences of old structures.

Homage to Miguel de Unamuno (1965), Homage to Martin Luther King (1968), the channel, port of Hourdel (1970), Memories of bay of Nap II (1979), Last rays on bay of Somme (1984 - 1989), watercolours of the Market gardens (1989), Picardy River (1982), Meadow (1982).

Sometimes let us tons them dark entirely disappear to leave room to rich person burstings of colors: pastoral Joy (1974), Anthem with the joy (1988), Homage to Don Alfonso Roig (1987).

The same structural evolution is achieved in the tapestries. Even if the blacks come to scratch the colors in the night (1966), they do not capture them any more. And they disappear in Hymne with the joy (1967), Bonfire (1974), Moissons (1976), Concerto out of orange (1979).

Its attraction for the stained glass is perhaps not explained only by the possibilities why offers coloured glass, but also by fenestration. It is indeed necessary to note the appearance more frequent than in other painters of works " verticales" , whose glance follows the stretching and is called upwards.

The thought

We think out of time, and if the works of art seem to us timeless (atemporelles), it is that they take part of the thought. When well even they exaltent nature, they do not proceed of a natural spontaneousness.

The Natural

A critic speaks, for Manessier, of " provocation of the nature". Indeed, Manessier feels " provoqué" to paint by nature, as of its youth. In work painted and work woven a real homage to nature is done day. The colors, the lights are the fact of a filled with wonder and scrupulous glance. Always astonished by the inexhaustible expansion by the forms, Manessier expresses like a gratitude in its works. And when it evokes the personalities which it admires, they are often men who maintained a relationship to various aspects nature: Camille Corot, Claude Monet, Teilhard of Chardin inter alia.

Urban reality

However, as it would be erroneous to reduce Impressionism to exclusively pastoral spectacles, it would be false to reduce the work of Manessier to bucolic visions. Between nature, with the banal direction of the term, and the human drama, draw up the urban landscapes: favellas Brazilian (1979 - 1983), towers of the Parisian suburbs (1987 - 1990), cities Algerian… We find there aimed twilight, night proceeding of a moderate fascination of concern in front of amoncelés habitats where inhumanity too often disputes it with poverty.

The human drama

A serene attention paid to nature could gather us if our humanity were also not recalled to us by the tragedies of the History. Struck full whip by the crimes, Manessier very early discovers in him a duty to be indignant. The Nazism, Francoism, the repression of the liberation movement with Budapest, the war of the Vietnam, the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Mgr Roméro in its church, tear off it with the attentive observation of the natural lights. However Manessier is not folded up on a distressed pessimism. To say the intolerable one is not to take pleasure in it.

The lawsuit of the Basque militants with Burgos in 1970 leads Manessier to a emblematic work. It does not discuss the founded good of the revolutionary action. Its point of view is not that of an political economist. The generosity simple, sincere, spontaneous, of which it makes proof in the daily life, with this moving way of accommodating the other as if it were awaited from any eternity, - this generosity is found in impetuous works where it expresses its horror of what tends to kill the hope. It is Christian, but it is not concerned with which raises the crucifix: the crimes of the victim do not excuse those of the torturer, and any assassination is assassination of Jesus.

The reds and the blacks of the Passion according to Saint Matthieu (1948), of the Passion of Our Lord Jesus-Christ (1952) were organized like theological constructions. In the Lawsuit of Burgos (1970 - 1971), almost the disappearance of blue leaves room to a great tragic and vehement movement. The suffering, here, is not any more conceptualized but is lived by empathy, and it appears in the torn form of a kind of large Christ black bathing in her blood.

The Faith

Manessier always defended himself to be a " painter religieux". Itself says that the works of art crowned are sometimes deprived of an any religious dimension, which, on the other hand, it is found in the work of Camille Corot. The sacred art does not have the role to inform the Christian people any more. It is about communier in the hope, to express the faith in the triumph of the life. There is no despair in the tables born of the reading of the Évangiles. And if Manessier stuck so much to the topics of the Passion and Easter, it is that it sees there a promise of more powerful life, more insistent than in the Annonciation or birth of the Christ.

Her last work, unfinished, Our friend death according to Mozart (1993) is a large vertical fabric (300 X 80 cm). Under a veil very clearly sown keys of varied colors, extends a red bottom, itself very moderate. Death is, for Manessier, inseparable from the Résurrection. The shroud leaves in light scraps like laces, and death is erased. The same colors which exploded in pastoral Joie in 1974, true anthem with nature, reappear assagies, domesticated, enlisted in the crusade against death. The fact even as the table is not finished is as a symbol of the permanent offering which the work of Manessier which is presented, until in the denunciations of the evil constitutes, like an Epiphany of the life.

Works of Alfred Manessier in the French collections

In order not to weigh down this article, this list is the subject of a special article. Thank you to refer to you to the List of works of Manessier in the museums of France

Works of Alfred Manessier in the foreign collections

In order not to weigh down this article, this list is the special article object. Thank you to refer to you to the List of works of Manessier in the museums of the world.

Stained glasses of Alfred Manessier in France

Sixteen units, alphabetically of the city in which they are located:

Abbeville (Somme), Church of the Holy Sepulchre, 1982 - 1993.
Alby-on-Chéran (Haute-Savoie), Church Notre-Dame de Plaimpalais and Saint-Donat, 1978.
Arles (Rhone delta), Church Saint-Pierre de Trinquetaille, 1953.
Bréseux (Doubs), Church Saint-Michel, 1948 - 1950. See the study of Helene Claveyrolas quoted in the summary bibliography.
Céret (the Eastern Pyrenees), Room of Saint-Roch music, 1985.
Chartres , Falls from François Lorin (Master-glassmaker), Cimetière Saint-Chéron, 1972 - 1973.
Hem (Northern), Vault Holy-Therese-in-the Child-Jesus and of the Holy Face, 1957.
Locronan (Finistere), Vault Our-Lady-of-Good-News, 1985. See the study of Helene Claveyrolas quoted in the bibliography.
Metz (the Moselle), regional Institute of administration, 1986.
Paris XVe , Vault of the Convent of the Sisters of the Assumption, 1968 - 1969 (partly deposited).
Pontarlier (Doubs), Saint-Benign Church, 1973 - 1975.
Pouldu (Finistere), Notre-Dame Vault of Peace (with the collaboration of Jean Moal), 1958. See the study of Helene Claveyrolas quoted in the bibliography.
the Saint-Dié-of-Vosges (the Vosges) Cathedral (northern transept), 1986. See the study of Helene Claveyrolas quoted in the bibliography.
Saverne (the Low-Rhine), Church of the Nativity of the Virgin, 1975 - 1976.
Verdun (Meuse), Vault of Carmel, 1967 - 1968.
Vogue (Ardeche), Vault of the castle, 1978 - 1980.

Stained glasses of Alfred Manessier out of France

Swiss

Basle , Church of All-the-Saint, 1952.
Freiburg , Cathedral Saint Nicolas's Day (Vault of the Holy Sepulchre, high Windows of the nave, Western pink of the room of the Treasury), 1976 - 1979 - 1988.
Gruyeres (Canton of Freiburg), Vault Holy-Agathe de Pringy, 1990.
the Tops-Geneveys (Canton of Neuchâtel), Oratory of the center for mental handicapped children of Plainchis, 1977 - 1978.
Moutier (Canton of Bern), Notre-Dame Church of Prévôté, 1965 - 1969.
Posieux (Canton of Freiburg), Cistercian abbey of Hauterive, 1976.

Germany

Berlin - Schöneberg , evangelic Church Paul Gerhardt, 1980.
Bremen , Protestant Church Unser Lieben Frauen, 1966 - 1979.
Cologne , Crypt of the Saint-Gereon basilica, 1963 - 1964.
Essen , Crypt of Münsterkirche, 1959 - 1960.

Spain

Llutxent , Vault of Ermita, 1974. where remained regularly Alfred Manessier of [[1963] with 1985].

The friends painters of Alfred Manessier

Alfred Manessier counts among his friends the artists Henri-Georges Adam, Jean Bazaine, Jean Bertholle, Roger Bissière, Eudaldo, Hans Hartung, Elvire Jan, Jean Moal, Edouard Pignon, Gustave Singier or Zoran Mušič and Zao Wou-Ki.

Summary bibliography

Choice of posterior works to the death of the artist.

J. - P. Hodin, Manessier , edition re-examined and corrected by Christine Manessier of a preceding work of J. - P. Hodin, ED. Ides and Calendes, Neuchâtel (Swiss), 1996. edition: J. - P. Hodin, '' Manessier '', the Library of Arts ([[Paris]) and Ides and Calendes (Neuchâtel, Switzerland), 1972].
Bernard Ceysson, Jean-Marie Lhôte, Christine Manessier, Alfred Manessier, Lights of North , editions of the Rebirth of the Book, Turned (Belgium), 2000.
Sabine de Lavergne, Alfred Manessier, an adventure with God (foreword of Camille Bourniquel), editions SILOE, Nantes and Laval, 2003.
Jean-Pierre Bourdais, Alfred Manessier, my friend , editions SILOE, Nantes and Laval, 2004.
Helene Claveyrolas, stained glasses of Alfred Manessier in the historical buildings , ED. Complicities, Paris, 2006.
Christian Briend, Manessier in the museums of France (foreword of Prof Jean-Pierre Changeux), ED. Monelle Hayot, Water Saint-Remy--the, 2006.

Catalog of films

Offerings of Alfred Manessier , a film of Gerard Raynal, 1992. Duration 52 mn. Grand Prix of 5th the Biennial International one of Film on Article Production Soleluna Films - France 3. Available in video cassette and DVD.

Great French personal exposures

Choice of exposures, among good of others, having taken place starting from 1993. The catalogs, rich in reproductions and articles, often take again discussions with Alfred Manessier and offer extracts of its personal notebooks.

1992-1993 , Retrospective in the Galleries of the Large palace, Paris. published by Skira {{ISBN|2605002225}}.
1993-1994 , Work woven. Great road show in France and Switzerland. catalog.
1993-1994 , Twenty-seven vertical watercolours, Gallery of France, Paris. {{ISBN|2902406479}}.
1996 , Fifteen lithographies on the topic of Easter, Spaces Georges Bernanos, Paris.
1997 , Models of the stained glasses of the church of the Holy Sepulchre d' Abbeville, Spaces Georges Bernanos, Paris.
1998 , Retrospective with the Cambric Museum.
1998 , Tapestries (Plasse Workshop Caisne) and Models of Stained glasses, Musée of Bordered, Dax.
1999-2000 , Passions, Harvests and Alleluias, Quesnel-Morinière Museum, Coutances.
2001 , Spiritual Canticles of Saint-Jean-of-the-Cross , continuation of twelve tapestries (Plasse Workshop Caisne), Chair-God. Exposure also presented in the cathedral of Beauvais in 2002.
2002 , Of the feature to the color (Drawing, Painting, Tapestry, Stained glass), Palate of King de Rome in Rambouillet.
2003 , Books illustrated by Manessier, Library Robert Mallet, Abbeville.
2004-2005 , Landscapes of bay of Somme and Picardy, Museum of Amiens. (Catalog].
2005 , Turns and other paintings, Museum of Soissons. (Catalog].
2006 , Dation and gifts with the National Collections, Centers Georges Pompidou, Paris.

Internal bonds

nonfigurative Painting
Lyric abstraction

External bonds

very detailed Biography
Manessier in the National museums (Joconde bases)
Manessier in Paris
stained glasses of Abbeville
Vitraux - Tables of bay of Somme and Picardy
Paysages (exposure of Châtillon)
Collection of the National museum of modern art Center Georges Pompidou (to seek: Manessier)
Bank of images of the ADAGP
Photographs of the Meeting of the National museums
Epiphany (1960-1961), painting of Manessier to the Museum of Art and History, Luxembourg
the blue Port (1948), painting of Manessier to the Museum of Quimper
the Notre Dame vault of Peace, Pouldu, stained glasses of Manessier and Moal
official Internet site of association Alfred Manessier

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