Pour l’amour de l’amour

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, Ernest Pignon-Ernest, texts by André Velter, Gallimard, 2015, 176 p., €35.