Marc Saint-Saëns

Lurçat approached Saint-Saëns, initially a fresco painter, as early as 1940. During the war, Saint-Saëns produced his first allegorical masterpieces, tapestries of indignation, struggle, and resistance: "The Mad Virgins," "Theseus and the Minotaur." After the war, he naturally joined Lurçat, whose convictions he shared (regarding numbered cartoons and limited tones, the specific style required for tapestry, etc.), within the APCT (Association of Tapestry Cartoon Painters). His world, where the human figure, elongated and stretched, holds considerable prominence (compared in particular to the role it plays in the work of his contemporaries Lurçat or Picart le Doux), revolves around traditional themes: woman, the Commedia dell'arte, Greek myths, etc., all sublimated by the brilliance of the colors and the simplification of the layout. In the 1960s, he would later move towards more lyrical, almost abstract designs, dominated by cosmic elements and forces.

"The Lightning Bolt" [another name for our tapestry]... testifies to the new direction of Saint-Saëns, noticeable from the 1960s onwards; it evokes cosmic forces [or, with our title, physical phenomena] less by the precision of the drawing than by the power, the very stridency of the color....This tapestry adorned the poster of Aérospatiale at the inauguration of its Cultural Center in Toulouse in 1971," says Michèle Heng, in the catalogue of the Aubusson exhibition.

Bibliography:
Exhibition catalog, Saint-Saëns, woven works, Aubusson, Musée départemental de la Tapisserie, 1987, reproduced p. 47
; Exhibition catalog, Marc Saint-Saëns, tapestries, 1935-1979, Angers, Musée Jean Lurçat et de la Tapisserie Contemporaine, 1997-1998