Gustave Le Gray / Pierre Soulages

Pierre Soulages has selected 19th-century photographs, three seascapes by Gustave Le Gray, next to which he exhibits a triptych dated 1996 comprised of three large panels measuring 290 x 130 cm each. The feeling of infinity Le Gray was able to render, the "vastness" as Soulages qualified it, emanates both from the subject, the sky and the sea, and from the treatment of light. This is to be found also in Soulages's piece, with the artist's own way of rendering it.

A specific scenography, designed according to the artist's indications, favours contemplation, highlighting the visual connection between the photographs and his painting. The sensation of infinity Le Gray captured and the rhythm in Soulages's triptych echo one another.

"What I liked in Le Gray's works is the vastness, the huge expanse of open space. All of that is as much due to the representation as to the particular light you find in his photographs. It is not only a vision of a seascape, it is also, created by an artist on a piece of paper, different values of grey to produce a certain kind of light and above all a feeling of vastness, which I like." (From Pierre Soulages's interview with Serge Lemoine, Sète, July 21, 2004)

Pressetext

Correspondences Gustave Le Gray / Pierre Soulages