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| catalogue cover image courtesy of Diego Lara |
Like many medieval towns in France you have the strong feeling stepping into it that it is actually a film set. Every one of these towns with ancient, leaning buildings, sagging wooden beams, narrow cobbled streets, are preposterously beautiful but not only that, they take you, without fail, into a different time. It is you who feel intrusive, who feel out-of-place and awkward in your modern clothes, your detached, sophisticated modern attitudes, your modern insufficiencies, your inability to blend in with the stonework and the wood, with the cobbles and the massive wooden doorways. Just the doorways alone, I stand and gaze at them.
But when people in this film set or this stage play talk to you, it is a lure impossible to resist, an invitation to take part in this play, ignoring your obviously alien appearance, since you come from some other time, still, they say, come into our drama, take part in our pantomime, come into the theatre, come! It very rarely happens to me on my own, but with P* it happens all the time. He says something to someone and they respond to his openness, his interest, his lack of suspicion or fear.
On our first arrival in Montricoux, we park the car near the laundrette, and walk down the street and there is only one person visible and P* addresses him. On the approach road to Montricoux we spotted a roadside image of a Templar Knight. P* believes there is some Templar history here, and asks about a possible Templar church. The sole pedestrian is pushing a large-wheeled metal cart, across which lies a stiff-bristled brush, and he wears hi-viz overalls. He pauses, rests his cart, and starts to talk. And so it happens that we are invited into the story, which contains history and art, as all good stories do and I am speechless with amazement, at the ease with which P* manages, artlessly, to be interested in others, engage them in conversation and how eager they are, almost always, to invite him in as if they had spent ages looking for someone to play his part and suddenly, here he was, he’d turned up and what a marvellous addition he will make to their story. I feel very lucky that just because I happen to be with him, I too am graciously invited.
We are led around the corner and pass an imposing doorway, to La Musée La Villa des Peintres. I have to say that I’m not too clear about where we’re going, for the bénévole – the cart pusher explains he does this to assist the community – speaks with a strong accent that I find hard to follow. My understanding lags behind his speech and once I’ve worked it out I’ve missed the next two sentences. But P* seems very happy, and to go to a musée is fine by me. I enjoy the adventure, the way the day has made its own decisions, and swept us up into its street theatre. We go to another door, ring the bell. This the bénévole explains, is where the museum curator lives. Oh we should not disturb him if the museum’s closed, says P*. No no he will not mind says the bénévole in the orange overalls, he likes to show people round, il est disponible, it is not a problem, it’s a joy for him.
Perhaps not so excessive, but that was the impression given. When the white haired curator answers the door, I am not so sure – going by body language rather than speech, he seems a little uncertain of those two strangers, he does not smile at the bénévole, but after a brief exchange, he agrees to fetch the key and show us round the museum. And, as he talks about the paintings, his enthusiasm warms and grows, until his talk is a constant flow.
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| Allégorie by Louis Oury |
Many of the paintings are by local artists, as he tells us, he particularly wanted to pay homage to those who lived and worked here, who adored the locale, the beauty of the hills, mountains, rivers, the woods and forests, the birds and other wildlife; people who were born locally or were drawn here and could not move away. Portraits, self-portraits, landscapes. The history of this man and the gallery which he has made himself – the building was a ruin he tells us, when he first acquired it – is impressive: wooden stairs and balcony, wooden parquet flooring in the rooms and it is all his creation, he has made the wooden stairs and balcony, he has collected all these wonderful artworks and he has even, it turns out, renovated the basement of the very house that P* lives in now, in Espinas.
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| MUSEE La Villa des Peintres: courtesy Diego Lara |
P* feels slightly faint at this coincidence, staggers on the stairs, fortunately saved from falling by his trusty canne which is also made of wood, so it blends in with the wooden building. P* himself manages to blend in just about anywhere, with his grey woolly hat from the bottom of which springs his long greying hair, and then there is his long white beard which has caused some women, he tells me, to refer to him as Gandalf the wizard. I’m not so sure about my own appearance, though I am fond of the leather jacket I bought in Paris, the red hat, in the fashion of the 1930s, bought at the Croix Rouge shop in Caussade and I fear that might be just a little too colourful for the nature tones in this art gallery. Many of the landscapes are local – look, here is an ink drawing of Espinas!
ink drawing of Espinas church by Rolland Rotges
The curator gets more and more enthusiastic as the tour goes on, and speaks too quickly for me to follow easily. This gives me time to focus not just on the art works, but also on the other ways we have of expressing ourselves, through movement, gesture, stiffness or fluidity of our bodies, facial expressions.
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