By
opportunely placing a pregnant woman on the threshold
of the gallery of portraits he submits to us, he also
tells us that we come from a woman’s body and
subordinates our visit to this inaugural image. The
deliberate discontinuity with the last shot works
upon as in the manner of the vanities of Renaissance
painting. Memento mori. Remember you are going to
die. The existence of each human being is that progression
from one mood to another, from one body to another,
and by reminding us of the polyphony of life, the
laying bare of the countless pitfalls which disguise
the ambivalence of the world. Those asperities that
we do not wish to see, Chavanis imposes them upon
our gaze and our sensitivity. “He who comes
into the world to trouble nothing deserves no respect”,
said René Char. How is it the flesh is a border
within ourselves? The answer lies always between these
two extremes: “The frightful limitation of the
human body” answers Kafka; “The solemn
geography of the body”, responds Eluard.
David
LEBRETON
