Art Of The Day Weekly
#416 - from 4 February 2016 to 10 February 2016
Seductive ecstasies
It is quite daring to present the great mystics under the appearance of beautiful women in ecstasy (even if it often the truth – it would suffice to read again Therese of Avila or Jeanne de la Croix – their emotion has deeply erotic accents). It is not sure after all that these brides of God, scantly dressed here, could have such irreproachable beauty. Pignon-Ernest’s impeccable drawings and the writing of André Velter embrace two thousand years of extreme religious passion, from Marie-Madeleine to Madame Guyon, including Angèle de Foligno and Louise du Néant (1639-1694), who was placed in the hospital of la Salpêtrière and willingly declined drastically as she licked crumbs off the floor or her neighbors’ wounds, and drank out of a skull.
• Pour l’amour de l’amour, (in French), Ernest Pignon-Ernest, texts by André Velter, Gallimard, 2015, 176 p., €35.
