Artists' Philosophies

It is always fascinating to read what other artists have thought about the state and office of being an artist. Many times, I find myself reading something an artist has written and I think, oh yes, exactly, that is what I think or feel. It is nice that there is often a community of thought between artists, even separated by many  generations. I suppose it is really because the demands of art creation remain essentially those of finding a means to express thoughts, passions, emotions that can be communicated to others, visually, audibly, in tactile fashion. In a way, an artist is, willy nilly, a conduit for personal or societal issues and interests, joys and sorrows, stories and inventions.

Some of Josef Albers' philosophical statements are both pithy and very relevant to every artist. For instance: "The content of art: Visual formulations of our reactions to life." Or: "The aim of art: Revelation and evocation of vision."

Grey Facade, oil on masonite, 1947-54, Josef Albers (image courtesy of the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation)

Variant, Orange Front, oil on masonite, 1948-58, Josef Albers (image courtesy of Josef and Anni Albers Foundation)

It is remarkable to think about the diversity of reactions to life shown by artists thought the ages and even more so today, in the wide-open world we all evolve in. It is testimony to both artists' individuality and their cohesion that the art created is often such a powerful evocation of their vision and that it can be understood and shared by such wide and far-flung publics.

The aspects of revelation and evocation of vision are tackled with many different means. Painting, video, sculpture, photography, drawing... are just some of the visual means. Drawing, for instance, my favourite medium, is a passport to exploring and understanding the world about us in potentially exquisite detail.

Study of Stag, Lucas Cranach the Elder,, 1520-30 (image courtesy of the J. Paul Getty Museum)

Study, black chalk on tinted paper, 1515-1516, Titian (image courtesy of Asmolean Museum, Oxford)

Head of Bearded Man, 1523-25, red chalk,, Francesco Mazzola Parmigianino, (Image courtesy of Städl Museum, Frankfurt)

Artist, Australian Brett Whiteley, said something very wise about drawing: "(It)i s the art of being able to leave an accurate record of the experience of what one isn't, of what one doesn't know. A great drawer is either confirming beautifully what is commonplace or probing authoritatively the unknown."

Shankar, 1966, charcoal, ink, spray paint, enamel, collage on paper. Brett Whiteley (Image courtesy of Art Gallery, New South Wales)

Another interesting remark about drawing: "Every motion of the hand in every one of its works carries itself through the element of thinking, every bearing of the hand bears itself in that element. All the work of the hand is rooted in thinking." Convoluted but in essence, this remark of Martin Heidegger harks back to what Albers said about our reactions to life in art making.

Design for disputa, c. 1508-09, pen & ink , black chalk, Raphael (image courtesy of Stadl Museum, Frankfurt)

Actually the artist's thinking involves a lot of effort even before the hand begins to draw or paint. The initial idea for the creation necessitates decisions about medium, support, size of work, choice of colour (or not), even to work in the studio or outside. The hand's actions then reflect all these earlier thoughts and decisions, even if the actual art is more visceral and seemingly spontaneous.

All serious art-making is underpinned by care and effort and, consciously or not, by  thoughts and observations that add up to that artist's philosophy.  Often these philosophies are not articulated as such, but sooner or later, each artist, talking or writing about creating art, will begin to enunciate these thoughts. Artists' statement, for instance, are a vehicle for these thoughts.  (However, I recently discovered that there are websites where you plug in various characteristics of your art, your age, etc., and hey presto, you have a seemingly skilled sample of "arts-speak" that says everything and in truth nothing at all - the very opposite of thinking about one's personal artistic philosophy.)

Perhaps it is an indication of deepening artistic experience and - ideally - skill that an artist can talk coherently and interestingly about what moves him or her to create art, what is important, how it is achieved.  Somehow it is part of our collective heritage that artists can talk of  how and why  their art forms part of the extraordinary continuum of creative endeavour that links artists and humanity in general down the ages.

Artists' debt to Michelangelo

In the superb Martin Gayford biography on Michelangelo (Fig Tree Press, 2013), there is a thought-provoking quote from Giorgio Vasari. Writing in 1568, he wrote, "All artists ar under a great and permanent obligation to Michelangelo, seeing that he broke the bonds and chains that had previously confined them to the creation of traditional forms."

I found this an interesting thought, because in today's context, artists probably consider Michelangelo as very traditional compared to the art and architecture often created now. Nonetheless, just as Cézanne is considered a pioneer of modern art, perhaps it is salutary to think of Michelangelo leading the way to today's wide-ranging possibilities of self-expression in art.

Vasari was in fact talking of work that Michelangelo had done 25 years previously, after he had already pushed out artistic boundaries hugely when painting the Sistine Chapel. With the Medici Pope Clement VII elected in 1523, financing on the work for the Medici funerary chapel at San Lorenzo was released, Since there had been a hiatus since Michelangelo conceived the first architectural forms in 1520-21, he had evolved and the later way he designed the tombs and surrounding elements was totally different and revolutionary.

As Martin Gayford wrote about the "breakthrough": "in the windows in the third storey of the interior of the sacristy" which "contain, in embryo, the potential of not just one future style, but two. In their wilful, witty breaking of the classical rules is the essence of Mannerist architecture. Beyond that, the lead towards the Baroque of a century later." In essence, Michelangelo had created window sides that are at an oblique, dynamic angle.

Miichelangelo's New Sacristy, San Lorenzo Church, Rome

Third storey, New Sacristry

Third Storey, New Sacristy

New Sacristry Dome

It is an interesting thought that long, long before the Cubists, the later 20th century architectures like Frank Gehry or any of the other "daring" idioms of the modern art world, Michelangelo dared to do the pretty-well-unthinkable in painting, sculpture and architecture. it just goes to show that we all need to dare, to adventure, to think independently in our creations. Boundaries are there to be crossed, limits transcended, risks embraced. Like that, just as Michelangelo did in his determined, meticulous attention to every detail of art-making, each artist can aspire to "break the bonds and chains" though serious effort and trust in that little inner voice.

Burgundy's Stones

Stones along the roadside or lying in a ploughed field; they are really humble objects that often go unnoticed. During an art residency in Noyers, Burgundy, however, I found stones beginning to speak insistently to me.  I found it surprising and entrancing. My first discovery was that many of the stones held tiny fossilised shells of many kinds. I was fascinated, as the stones were really heavy, very different from the limestone rocks lying everywhere, rocks which split amazingly flat and thin. Then I began to find limestone thin slabs with the most beautiful patterns on one face, patterns of minute granulations in golds and browns.

Gold silverpoint on black

My stone collection got heavier and heavier! I retreated to my wonderful studio perch at La Porte Peinte in Noyers, and entered the complex world of these stones as I started to explore them by drawing them in metalpoint.

To my astonishment, their tiny world bewitched me so much that I found myself drawing almost at their command, creating work that was different, almost automatic in what I  found myself  drawing as I wove the details together.  I kept seeing different details that transformed themselves into other images as I studied them, revealing a whole world of personages, mythical animals, landscapes, a panoply of the imagination's possibilities.

Stone Lace II, silverpoint and Prismacolor, Jeannine Cook

The next discovery and delight was learning of the minute fossilised oyster shells that help form the famous "terroir", the hallmark of a wine - in this case, the terroir that makes Chablis such a famed and wonderful white wine experience. I was lucky enough to be able to borrow samples of these heavy conglomerations of fossils from a wonderful wine grower, Vincent Dauvissat,  in Chablis. His stones held me in their thrall for days, as they told of ancient seas teeming with life over 180 million yers ago where now there are rolling fertile hills and valleys, home to the Chablis vineyards.

Huitres de Chablis I, silverpoint, Prismacolor, Jeannine Cook

I spent days in company with these quiet but eloquent stones, utterly involved in creating metalpoint drawings from their configurations. The wonderful artist residency inevitably finished and so I rushed to the Post Office with a very heavy parcel – to send home, of course, more of the stones!

Here's to continuing my metalpoint conversations with these humble stones that lie along the roadsides of Burgundy. I can't wait to get back to them!

Echoing Joan Miró's Wisdom

Joan Miró

The Fundacion Pilar I Joan Miró a Mallorca is a wonderful place in which to spend a hot summer morning.  From the sunswept terraces that overlook the brilliance of the Mediterranean to the cool, diffuse light of alabaster screens in the exhibition spaces, all the senses are awakened by unexpected juxtapositions of interest and beauty. Rafael Moneo designed the exhibition spaces as a complement to Miró’s studio and Pilar and Joan Miró’s home.  Gardens and reflecting pools are glimpsed from the building through often low windows, enhancing the building’s spaciousness and its spare simplicity.

In a way, the buildings follow a concept that Miró enunciated about his paintings in black and white.  Writing in 1959, Miró said, “My wish is to achieve maximum intensity with minimum means”. Many of his paintings verge on the oriental in many ways during this period.

Painting on a White Ground, Joan Miró, 1968 (image courtesy of Tate Britain)

Painting on a White Ground, Joan Miró, 1968 (image courtesy of Tate Britain)

His desire to use an intense but spare vocabulary in monochromatic work resonated with me, for increasingly, that is what interests me in my metalpoint drawings.  How to say a lot in a condensed or powerful fashion, using the minimum of means.  In truth,metalpoint is such a simple, humble drawing medium: just a piece of metal, making marks on a smooth surface prepared with a ground.  Its range of tones is limited, its scale often limited because of the slowness of execution, its discipline of technique demanding. Yet despite all that, like Miró’s black and white paintings, metalpoint at its best is quietly powerful.  Its lustre is alluring and unusual, its economy of form arresting.

One of the masters of silverpoint/metalpoint was of course Leonardo da Vinci. He led the way in the maximum impact-minimum means league.

A Rider on Rearing Horse Trampling a Fallen Foe (Study for Sforza Monument), Leonardo da Vinci, metalpoint on blue prepared paper, (image courtesy of Windsor Castle, Royal Library)

Another silverpoint artist working today with a very different approach is Roy Eastland, a British artist.  Nonetheless, to my eye, he is highly successful in the impact he achieves with the humble medium of silverpoint.

What wouldn't I give to grow old in a place like that, Roy Eastland, 2010, silverpoint on gesso

One of my minimalist recent metalpoint drawings owes its origins to the patterns I saw recently on a huge plane tree one hot July day in France.

Traces IV-V-VI, silver-goldpoint, 2013, artist Jeannine Cook

Rules of the Plein Air Game

It is always fascinating to realise how one evolves as an artist. I am constantly surprised at how things change, whilst the core impulses and responses remain consistent.

I was reminded of this yesterday as I found myself responding to the intricate beauty of ancient olive trees and mighty Mediterranean pines in a way that I would not have done a year or two ago.

Olive Tree (Olea europaea)

Mediterranean Pine (Pinus halepensis)

Yes, I love trees, and have always found them of intense interest and delight. But now, with my eyes more attuned to their texture and patterning of wood and bark because of the way I am frequently drawing in metalpoint, I “see” differently. And more than that, I find myself learning more and more adapting and moving to a very selective mode of drawing en plein air.

There is an interesting passage in a book I read some time ago, Monet by Robert Gordon and Andrew Forge, published by Abradale Press in 1989. Discussing painting (and by extension drawing) en plein air, “To paint directly, to follow the rules of the plein air game, means to start with what is given from a particular position. Studio painting avoids occlusion problems (i.e. one near form hiding another behind it), but plein air means you have to choose your position and you have to deal with being blinded by overlapping features.”

Where you chose to stand or sit, what details you pay attention to: these are critical decisions for the artist to make at the onset of a work of art. The passage in Monet gives the example of a view down a straight road.

It establishes the visible world in depth at the same time that it establishes the position of the observing eye. It defines the relationship between seer and the seen within a geometrically precise structure.

Every time now that I start a metalpoint drawing, I need to decide on my position – where I am going to sit. This determines the details that visually jump out at me amid the welter of detailed information on the patterned bark of a tree, for instance.

Those selections dictate the “geometrically precise structure”, the composition that I have in mind (although that tends to evolve as I work). It also means that I have to “prune away” details that will not fit nor strengthen the drawing towards which I am almost instinctively groping.

It is indeed ideally a rather instinctive, non-conscious-thinking mode that I hope to achieve because I find that is when the best drawing happens. Not always possible, alas!

These are some of the more recent choices I made whilst sitting in front of mighty trees as to where I sit and what details are thus predominant and visible.

Walnut Freize, silverpoint, artist Jeannine Cook

Oak Labyrinth, gold-silverpoint, artist Jeannine Cook

Oak Labyrinth I, gold-silverpoint, artist Jeannine Cook

The rules of the plein air game become paramount.

Pouring your Life into your Art

Whether you like it nor not, your art is often the reflection of who you are and where life has taken you. That may be an unnerving idea, but it seems to be one that most artists, in all disciplines, have to come to terms with.

“You don’t make a photograph just with a camera. You bring to the act of photography all the pictures you have seen, the books you have read, the music you have heard, the people you have loved,” wrote Ansel Adams. And for photography, you can substitute any art form, from dancing to singing to visual arts or theatre.

Images of Sacha Copland dancing on a wine barrel at La Porte Peinte residency in Noyers, France, as she choreographs a new work, The Wine Project, tells us about all her past experiences and ideas. As she herself writes about The Wine Project, "There in the glass was the soil of a place and in that soil was a soul”.

Sacha Copeland, Artist Director, Java Dance Company, New Zealand (photograph courtesy of Emma Hellowell)

Sacha Copeland, Artist Director, Java Dance Company, New Zealand (photograph courtesy of Emma Hellowell)

Sacha Copeland, Artist Director, Java Dance Company, New Zealand (photograph courtesy of Emma Hellowell)

Frequently, the artist has little awareness of what is going into the art being created, if that small inner voice is in charge. It is only later that one realizes that there is a wonderful circularity in what is happening, a reason and its result, direct and obvious or much more subtle. It may be years and years later that something seen, something experienced comes floating up and into the art.

I began to realise, for instance, that my childhood exposure, on walls of my home in Tanzania, to Japanese woodcuts, wonderful prints that had been created after the 1923 earthquake in Yokohama, Japan, was the reason for my always feeling comfortable with negative spaces reaching all four sides of a piece of paper. Drawing or watercolours, it does not matter: I feel almost compelled to use the entire surface of the paper, edge to edge, to create “dis-balanced” spaces that play into the whole composition. To me, it is part of my concept of art-making; I feel very strange when I confine the work I am creating to the inner parts of the paper, leaving blank space around the image.

Marronniers III: Chestnut Bark, gold-silverpoint, Jeannine Cook artist

Le Chant des Pierres III: la Bourgogne Profonde, gold-silverpoint, Jeannine Cook artist

To me, the richness of art forms resides to a great degree on all these inner layers of life experience that the artist brings to the act of creation. Sometimes you capture and understand them, sometimes you don’t. There, again, part of the fascination of art is how each of us completes the dialogue of the art work.In other words, sometimes that artist’s life experiences resonate with the viewer. Sometimes they don’t because the viewer has had a radically different life and finds it difficult to find bridges stretching across to the artist’s world.

The question that lingers at the back of my mind is: what happens as present-day ever-accelerating giant changes in technology, urbanization, life styles and cultural mores show up more and more in art forms?

Do these changes create huge divergences in art and its adherents, particularly between generations? Or do we continue to acknowledge that certain art, in whatever form, transcends generations and centuries because the richness and power of its content and message? And, ultimately, who amongst us is the arbiter of the enduring character of that art? The super-wealthy buying at art auctions, the more “humble” supporters of all forms of art, governments and/or non-profit art organisations funding the arts, or who?

I wonder if Ansel Adamsthought of those “down-stream” aspects of art-making as he created his wonderful photographs.

Environments that Help Artists

Every artist instinctively seeks an environment that helps them create their art.

It is not always so easy to find either the place, nor the time and serenity to create, however. Every artist knows those stumbling blocks. Sometimes they are easily surmounted, other times it is not so easy.

Sometimes, luck intervenes too. In my case, Lady Luck definitely came calling this summer.

For a multitude of reasons, it has become difficult to have the time to spend in my studio, so I have been fortunate enough to be able to slip away for a while to different art residencies that I have been awarded hither and yon. This year, I had a magical two weeks in spring in Portugal.I was then able to have time at another residency, La Porte Peinte, in Burgundy, France, a country I adore anyway.

It is of course always a bit of a gamble going to art residencies.

It may be a wonderful place, with good studio facilities, but the area may not sing or the people who run the residency may not be terribly compatible – there are so many variables.

Until you get to the place, it is difficult to judge accurately whether you will be able to be truly creative there.

Even recommendations from other artists are not always an accurate gauge for one’s own needs.

La Porte Peinte, in Noyers sur Serein, in north-east Burgundy, near Auxerre, proves to be the most wonderful place in which to create art.

I have just spent the first half of a month’s residency there, and it was the most supportive, comfortable and welcoming place I could have dreamt of.

For a start, the medieval village is a delight.

You enter from the south over the Serein river.

At the entrance to Noyers sur Serein, photo J. Cook. 

And these are views from my eyrie perch window in my room.

Place de l'Hôtel de Ville, Noyers, photo J. Cook

Up the street from La Porte Peinte, photo J. Cook

L'Hôtel de Ville (Town Hall), Noyers, photo J. Cook

Michelle Anderson, the Executive Director of La Porte Peinte, is not only the most gracious of people, but her very international approach and wide knowledge of people and places make her able to help in so many ways. She also knows a lot of local people and that means that an artist has suddenly all sorts of insights and introductions into other ways of life in the area. That is beyond price. Her husband, Oreste, runs their elegant and diverse Gallery and does a million other things to make life at La Porte Peinte so pleasant and constructive. And yes, La Porte Peinte is situated in rue de la Porte Peinte - how about that for destiny!

The more I spend time at art residencies both in the United States and Europe, the more I realise that the atmosphere created by the people in charge is critical to an artist’s ability to create, explore new horizons and grow as an artist.

There is a subtle difference between being left to one’s own devices, to work in peace, and being left to be independent but at the same time, being offered the opportunity to involve oneself in the local cultural world, to meet other artists of all descriptions and disciplines and to be psychologically supported as an artist.

The Power of a Line

I saw a really interesting small exhibition that came from the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation in Bethany, Connecticut. It was at the Fundación Juan March in Palma de Mallorca and will be at the Museo de Arte Abstracto Español in Cuenca from now until October 5, 2014. Josef Albers: Process and Printmaking (1916-1976) was a small exhibition, divided into three sections.

His first woodblock prints, in black and white, are a far cry from the vivid colours and abstractions of his later work in the United States.

Albers was first inspired by the coal mining landscapes of his native Northern Rhine-Westphalia region in Germany; he turned to print-making not only for its economy of production but also for the creative liberty that the medium allowed him.

He was deeply engaged, not only in the manual involvement of how art is made in the printing process, but also in the exploration of how far he could push the possibilities of the medium. Endlessly inventive and questing, he clearly kept saying to himself, “What if I did this – or that?”

Questions that every artist should be constantly asking him or herself.

One particular series was especially interesting to me, for it showed just how powerful each line can be in a drawing or print, and if one changes the emphasis of just one line, the whole composition and content of the work changes.

As Albers said, “Everything has form and every form has meaning”, and his simple series that ended as Multiplex A-D done in 1947-8, demonstrated that perfectly. Alas, his preparatory drawings which are in the exhibition don’t seem to be available on the Web. But even there, the progression of ideas and different emphasis each time on a principal line versus a secondary line underlined how Albers understood so well how art can be changed a great deal, even just by a thin or thicker line.

The preparatory drawings and studies for the Multiplex series ranged from pencil drawings on paper, then on tracing paper, sometimes using a red pencil for emphasis, sometimes a blue pencil.

Finally, having worked out the range of possibilities for that play of lines, Albers moved to studies on paper for each version of the series, then gouache over proof of a woodblock print.

Meticulous and yet questing, the preparation for such seemingly simple prints is instructive. Josef Albers had planned out exactly what he wanted to say, the emphasis each time on his view of each line’s importance. In other words, the more he prepared and thought about each work, the more pared down and powerful it became a lesson for us all!

These are the woodbock prints that are the results of the Multiplex series’ preparation.

Each line is eloquent and functions as a vital part of the composition, in a “major” or “minor key”.

Multiplex A, 1947, Josef Albers, Woodblock on paper, 16 1/2 x 12 1/2"

Multiplex B, 1948, Josef Albers, Woodblock on paper, 16 1/2 x 12 1/2"

Multiplex C, 1948, Josef Albers, Woodblock on paper, 16 1/2 x 12 1/2"

Land Art, Burgundy Style

That’s life for you, isn’t it! All of a sudden, there is so much of fascination to blog about and share with the world, and at the same time, there is the quandary of what to do – blog or draw?And there are only those twenty-four hours in the day, alas. Nonetheless, I will burn the midnight oil a little to celebrate a wonderful event that I was privileged enough to share this weekend.

In a green and harmonious forest, deep in Burgundy, France, there is now a magically glowing Green Giant, a living forest sculpture created by Alain Bresson, a noted French artist.

Alain Bresson at the Forest Inauguration (image courtesy of Michelle Anderson Binczak)

Alain has been creating imaginative sculptures that celebrate the world around us for a long time, with work exhibited in notable venues in Paris, as well as Africa and other parts of Europe.

His land art is increasingly welcomed in exhibitions that draw attention to our environment, and in the case of the inauguration I attended, his imaginative empathy and understanding of the forest was clear.

Le Geant Vert 2, Alain Bresson, living sculpture (image courtesy of Michelle Anderson)

The Green Giant came about almost by chance – as Alain laconically and self-deprecatingly recounted at the inauguration, deep in the lush forest surroundings, he was walking in the local community forest. He suddenly saw the two strangely configured maples growing together and realized their possibilities. He had already had troubles with his own village. The authorities there made him destroy a previous Green Giant sculpture, but happily, in the case of the adjacent community of Argentenay, near Tonnerre, the Mayoress, Catherine Tronel, was more than receptive to having him create a living sculpture in the “forêt communale”.

So Alain covered the trees with yet more moss, which glowed luminously after all the rain we have had, and added delicious touches of scarlet to make the Giant gloriously jaunty. Moss globes, also with flamenco-style flowers tucked in to add allure, were hung from other trees to add depth to the scene. At the inauguration, as Alain explained, we could not yet see the total scene as he had planted different seeds in the moss and in the Giant’s foreground. They will germinate and change the effect, and make the Giant an evolving sculpture that will continue living for years to come. Much more fun than a sculpture that is created and then, that’s it, once it is placed in its official position.

As you parked by burnished pale gold grain fields and then walked into this cool forest, where birdsong is the only sound you normally hear, it was like entering a magical green world.

Burgundy fields, Argentenay, (image courtesy of Michelle Anderson)

Then suddenly this hugely tall green presence arrests and surprises, then delights. There is power and whimsy, and ultimately, a deep respect for our oh-so-important forests. Alain Bresson has travelled a long and successful route since he first went walking in the local countryside as a small boy on a school outing. While all the rest of his class brought back bunches of poppies and daisies to the teacher, he brought back branches, sticks and nettles. The teacher was horrified and reduced the eight-year–old to tears with his reproaches.

Now, I suspect, were that teacher to see The Green Giant, he would be of a different mind about Alain’s selections and skill.

Le Géant bourguignon qui habite le village d' Argentenay

Vous entrez dans une fôret lumineuse, spacieuse, où les verts sont intenses, infinément variés. Le sentier serpente, invite à se délaisser, à explorer. Et soudain on voit une boule de mousse, ornée d’une fleur vivement rouge, suspendue d’une branche. Puis, en voilà une autre. Ainsi, les yeux vers les cîmes des arbres, on aperçoit, d’un coup, le Géant Vert qui vous contemple de son hauteur impressionnante.

Le Géant Vert, Argentenay, photo de Michelle Anderson

Son créateur, le sculpteur Alain Bresson, l’a créé de deux érables vivants qui ont une forme entremêlée se prêtant à devenir “une personne”.

Alain Bresson, photo de Michelle Anderson 

Alain Bresson n’est point étranger à ces formes de “land art” dans la nature, car il en a créé maintes versions dans sa longue carrière artistique. Il est reconnu pour ses oeuvres qu’il expose avec beaucoup de succès à Paris, en Allemagne, en Afrique, un peu partout. Mais c’est d’abord chez lui, dans sa communauté même, qu’il a voulu créer un Géant dans la fôret. Pourtant, sa sculpture fut mal vue par l’hiérarchie élue; Alain fut obligé à détruire son oeuvre!

Heureusement pourtant, la jolie petite communauté d’Argentenay, (en Bourgogne), voisine de celle d’Alain, a été très receptive à l’idée qu’Alain a proposée de transformer deux érables vivantes en Géant Vert. L’inauguration a eu lieu le samedi 5 juillet, avec la présence de notables tels que M. Raymond Le Deun, Préfet de l’Yonne, M. François Patriat, Président du Conseil Régional de Bourgogne, M. André Villiers, Président du Conseil Général de l’Yonne, M. Jean-Jacques Gleizal, ancien Président du FNAC Bourgogne, et, bien sûr, Mme. Catherine Tronel, Maire d’Argentenay. Alain Bresson a brièvement expliqué que l’énorme personnage du Géant Vert est parsemé de graines dans la mousse lumineuse. Elles vont pousser bientôt pour ensuite acceueillr les oiseaux, les papillons, les fourmis.

Le Géant va ainsi évoluer, changer, se répandre en beauté. Sa splendeur verte intense va fluctuer au fur et à mesure que le temps se sèche ou que la pluie tombe, tout comme chaque être vivant. Par dessous de leurs revêtements de mousse, les deux arbres vont poursuivre leur croissance lente, au rhythme de la forêt qui les entoure.

Grâce à Alain Bresson, nous avons tous, en coeur d’une si belle forêt de Bourgogne, un Géant Vert qui nous aide à célébrer la nature, qui est, en fait, notre meilleure amie.