Ferdinand Horse

Joseph Ferdinand Horse , more known under the name of Ferdinand Horse and more still under the name of the factor Horse , (April 19th 1836 with Charm-on-the Bleached on grass, Drome, France - August 19th 1924 with Hauterives, Drome) was a factor French which spent 33 years of its life to build a “ ideal Palais ” and eight years additional to build its own tomb, both regarded as masterpieces of the naive Architecture.

Biography

After obtaining sound Certificate of primary studies, it becomes, at the thirteen years age, apprentice baker, profession in which it works during a few years.

The July 12th 1867, it is officially named “factor at the stations”.

In 1869, it is affected with Hauterives, a dozen kilometers of its native village, having charges the “round with it with Tersanne”, a daily pedestrian round of 33 km.

At the beginning of its long rounds, which did not have obviously the same rate/rhythm as the rounds cyclists or motorized of a rural “employee” of the 21e century, it occupies its hours of excursion to long daydreams during which it builds a “fairy-like palate”, daydreams which will start to be concretized only one ten years later.

The ideal Palate

According to its memories, in April 1879, during one of its rounds, its foot butts against a stone, lack to make it fall against the way. Its eye having been attracted by the form curious about the stone, it collects it and slips it into one of its pockets with the intention to look at it later with rested head.

As of the following day, passing by again with the same place, it notes the presence of other stones having forms even more singular and, with its taste, more beautiful than that which it had found the day before. It is then made the reflection that, since nature could “make sculpture”, it could itself very well, extremely of its long preparatory daydreams, to be made architect, project superintendent and workman in the construction of a “ideal Palate”.

During the 33 years which follow, Ferdinand Cheval does not cease choosing stones during its daily round, initially carrying them in its pockets, then being provided with a basket, even with a Brouette on certain occasions. Returned in its residence, it spends long hours to the implementation of its dream, working of night to the gleam of an oil lamp. He is then regarded as an eccentric by people of the vintage, who do not have the overall vision that the architect had.

Horse spends the first twenty years to build the frontage Is of the “Temple of nature”. The term of Ideal Palais was not given by Cheval that after its meeting with the alpine bard Emile Roux Parassac in 1904. The Palate is a very personal mixture of various architectural styles, with inspirations drawn as well from the Bible as in the Hindu Mythologie. The stones are assembled with lime, mortar and cement.

Ferdinand Cheval completes the construction of the Ideal Palais in 1912.

The Tomb of silence and the rest without end

After the completion of the ideal Palate, it expresses its desire to be later buried in the enclosure even of its work, which the French law does not allow when the body is not incinerated. The use of the Cremation at the time not having at all entered manners in France, Ferdinand Cheval is then solved to conform to the legal constraints while being made bury, at the proper time, in the communal cemetery, but by choosing itself the shape of its tomb.

Thus starting from 1914, it spends eight years additional to cart stones to the cemetery of Hauterives and to assemble them, to form the Tombeau of silence and the rest without end , completed in 1922.

It is buried there after its death, which has occurred in 1924.

Range of work

Little before its death, it receives the moral support of several artists such as Pablo Picasso and André Breton.

The ideal Palais of the factor Cheval was classified under the historic buildings by decree of the September 23rd 1969, signed Edmond Michelet, Minister for the cultural Affairs. At the same time, its predecessor, André Malraux, which had supported the procedure of classification before its departure of the government, had declared that he regarded the ideal Palate as “the only representative in architecture of the na5ive art”.

The Tomb of silence and the rest without end was registered on the additional inventory of the historic buildings, by decree of the September 12th 1975.

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