Louis Viennot lisant dans un bois de pins
Oil on tracing paper, stamped lower left.
67 x 100 cm
Study for Le Travail intellectuel, decor for the Conseil d'Etat, before 1922
Provenance :
Artist's family, by inheritance
Related work :
Vieillard en promenade dans une forêt, Etude pour Le Travail intellectuel, décor du Conseil d'Etat, circa 1916, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux.
Certificate of inclusion in the archives used to draw up the catalogue raisonné of Henri Martin issued by Marie-Anne Destrebecq-Martin.
The solitary walker, study for the grand décor of the Council of State
Tall trees take centre stage in the General Assembly room of the Conseil d'Etat. They preside over the opening of the session, in a decorative programme by Henri Martin that alternates between depicting manual labour and intellectual work on the walls.
Agricultural, working-class France, open to maritime trade, was thus presented to the Council, which had the onerous task of judging its laws. In contrast to the abundance of colours and figures, and the intense life that emanates from the compositions inspired by hard work (Agriculture, Commerce and Public Works), the figure with the long white beard who embodies intellectual work walks headlong through an autumnal undergrowth. With him comes a time of silence, of the quietude essential to intellectual creation, of contemplation. Intellectual work is thus seen as a priestly path.
This forest is reminiscent of Henri Martin's Symbolist period, anchoring the legends and poems that long inhabited his thoughts. The unchanging, secular, reclusive forest is a place of memory. Here, it takes on the tones of interiority that lead the character's footsteps towards these solid, upright trunks, which rise towards the heavens like sentinels of reason. Viennot, a friend of Henri Martin who worked at the Bibliothèque Nationale, was the model for this figure with a mysterious aura.
A heavy responsibility weighed on his experienced shoulders. Impervious to outside stimuli, he seems, on the other hand, to be soaking up the wisdom of the trees as he walks alone, taking advice from them as he does from his book, in a singular communion. In the final version of the large set, the figure's hands are clasped behind his back around his book, reinforcing the sense of introspection in the composition.