Art
May mysteries
Giles Auty
Afortnight ago, watching rain pound my garden for the fifth consecutive day, I was struck by a minor mystery. How is it that gnats, whose body-weights are unlike- ly to stir any but the most delicate of scales, are able to dance on through a deluge of water? Even when the rain turned to hail, with stones the size of peas recoiling from every surface they struck, my midges gam- bolled just as cheerfully. Do they dodge hailstones in the same miraculous way that flies and mosquitos pass through the strings of tennis rackets swung at them with `People are avoiding me. I've never been opinion-polled.' punitive intent? To suggest that the mys- tery of the gnats gnawed away at my mind throughout a subsequent 800-mile drive to the nether shores of France would be an exaggeration, but I would still be inter- ested in a rational answer. On arrival at my destination, near the old Roman town of Hyeres, another and more relevant mys- tery was soon to engross me.
Following a chance encounter, on a beach, with a Polish artist, I was taken to see what is probably one of the largest and best exhibitions of naive art that exists anywhere. Very few people seem to know about it and, so far as I know, no written or visual records exist. As I was lucky to see the collection in the first place, I am anxious to share the privilege with others who may also find themselves in the area — just east of Toulon — on pleasure or business. The paintings, about 600 in num- ber, are hung in the narthex or anti-nave of the church of Saint Paul, which dominates the narrow, hilly streets of the old part of Hyeres. Because the works are in what forms virtually a vestibule, rather than the main body of the building, visits are possible at most times.
The paintings are by local, predominant- ly amateur artists and record the untimely deaths of previous parishioners and the manner of their happening. This curious custom is common to this area of Provence but also exists in other forms, such as lines of doggerel celebrating the departed, M other areas of rural France. In Provence these ex-voto images, as far as I under- stand the matter, take the form of recon- naissances — expressions of gratitude to the Almighty, or recognitions of debt. I have yet to find literature which explains the precise origins of this fascinating art form but in another local church I visited, at Collobrieres in the Massif des Maures, the images on display were less graphic and explicit. Until I find time for appropriate research, the matter must remain a further, temporary mystery to me, although I have little doubt several informed Spectator readers could apprise me already of the answers.
The visual fascination of the sad events depicted lies in a number of areas: their value as an accurate contemporary chroni- cle of manners, implements and dress; their record of the precise manner of accidents in previous times; last but not least, their strange pictorial constructions and unconscious humour. Men, some may think appropriately, seemed to meet their end generally by violent means. Guns blowing up in the faces of hunters, climb- ing accidents and drowning and shipwreck all feature regularly, but the most common accidents of all involved horses and mules. Death through kicks and bites, overturned farm carts and even decapitation via the spokes of cart-wheels clearly made rural life something less than honey and roses, which were products of the area even in earlier times. In burgeoning towns, the Principal danger lay in being run over by carriages and carts — typical French driv- ers even in those days — while later scenes show more familiar flatteners such as early trains and motor-cars. Less common sources of demise were defenestration, tumbles out of fruit trees and perhaps, unluckiest of all, a butcher who impaled himself on one of his own meat hooks. For women, childbirth was the major hazard, closely followed, apparently, by lightning shooting down the chimney and toasting the occupants. A nun falling through a skylight was depicted with awful per- suasiveness (and perspective) as was also a child falling from the kitchen table. A tumble into a river while pursuing butter- flies could be looked on, similarly, as unlucky, but what of the infant dashed against an overhead gantry through clutch- ing the rope whereby a fierce horse was pulling hay aloft?
Many of the paintings are deeply moving in their directness and passion for physical detail. In spite of naïve errors of scale and perspective, the events they show us are all too credible. Perhaps strangest of all, these true amateur artists display occasional awareness of famous predecessors or con- temporaries: Annibale Carracci, Gericault and even Hokusai. The earliest painting dates from 1613.
Previous page
