| From the time, already distant, when he started to paint, Mr. Pierre Girieud cherished the dream of going, like a pilgrim, meditating on the land where our Western art was born and, like Renan, saying his prayers on the Acropolis
When circumstances allowed him to do so, Pierre Girieud sailed for Greece. He lived there for six months a marvelous dream. This southerner found himself at home. With the state of mind of an Elder, he went to Delphi to consult the oracle. He lashed towards Delos to sink into enchanting hours in his solitude.
Stopped a few weeks in the port of Nafplion, he admired the marine softness of this site.
To Epidaurus, he returned pious homework to the memory of Aesculapius.
But Athens especially conquered it entirely. Almost every day, like a pious pilgrim, he went up to the Acropolis. He approached it from all sides. He scrutinized the surroundings.
He studied the Parthenon from all angles. He admired, at all hours, the moving shadows created by the caresses of the sun. He memorized the modulations of the Erechteion on the sky.
He chose to house a house from which he could see the sacred hill at all hours. The atmosphere of Athens, he can describe it from memory
He can tell how the marble of the pediments varies according to whether the azure is relentless or whether clouds are massing, according to the hour and the month.
Happy man, he lived a dream that he intends to relive as soon as he can. Today, he invites his friends. known and unknown, to participate in his memories of joy and he exhibits the fruits of his first oriental labor, his Landscapes of Greece.
These landscapes are perhaps, until now, the peak of its production.
Without doubt, the interest is great in his sketches for the University of Poitiers, no doubt he shows in his exhibition, for the first time, projects of a beautiful rhythm for frescoes that he will execute at Jas de Puyvert, but, it is nonetheless the twenty eight landscapes of Greece which are, most of this set. It is towards them that we come back to savor the intimate union that a contemporary artist knew how to achieve with classicism.
Twenty-eight landscapes, small in size, but large with evocative emotion and faith. Everything in them is finesse and nuances, in an almost austere sobriety. It is the language that must be spoken at the sanctuary of ancient Wisdom.
Let Mr. Girieud take the spectator before the sacred mount where the sheer roofs form a belt from which emerge, as an offering to the Divine, the semi-ruined temples, so perfectly beautiful that one cannot believe that formerly they could have offered one, greater perfection, or that, in front of the impressive and wild gorges of the mountains of Delphi, it reminds us that there, natural architecture retains as much. nobility that the most beautiful architecture out of human hands, always Mr. Girieud, devoutly faithful to the Truth, traces what he saw, with a humble heart that overflows with love.
To my knowledge, the Greek landscape has never been interpreted with such fervor. Never has such a faithful image been brought among us. These paintings by Mr. Girieud are the noble homage of an artist to the Grève Mère des Arts, always, trembling and fruitful. |