The alarm clock
« Tapisserie tissée par l’atelier Baudonnet.nAvec son bolduc signed de l’artiste.n1959. »
Lurçat sought out Saint-Saëns, first as a fresco painter, from 1940 onward. And, during the war, the latter produced his first masterpieces of allegorical indignation, fight, and resistance: “les Vierges folles”, “Thésée et le Minotaure”. At the end of the war, it was only natural that he joined Lurçat, sharing his convictions (about the Numbered Cartoon and the counted tones, about the specific writing that tapestry requires, …) within the A.P.C.T. (Association des Peintres-cartonniers de Tapisserie). His universe, in which the human figure—stretched, elongated—occupied a considerable place (compared in particular with the role it plays in those of his fellow artists Lurçat, or Picart le Doux), revolved around traditional themes: the woman, the Commedia dell’arte, the Greek myths, … sublimated by the brilliance of the color palette and the simplification of the layout. He would then evolve, in the 1960s, toward more lyrical, almost abstract cartons, in which cosmic elements and forces dominated. « Saint-Saëns qui éxécuta une série d’oiseaux en 1949 a peu représenté le coq, animal fétiche de Lurçat. Le coq est ici exempt de tout symbolisme et annonce dans un tumulte de cris et de couleurs la naissance du jour. » (Cat. Expo. Saint-Saëns, oeuvre tissé, Aubusson, Musée départemental de la Tapisserie, 1987 p.48) Bibliographie : Cat. Expo. Saint-Saëns, galerie La Demeure, 1970 Cat. Expo. Saint-Saëns, oeuvre tissé, Aubusson, Musée départemental de la Tapisserie, 1987, ill. p.49 Cat. Expo. Marc Saint-Saëns, tapisseries, 1935-1979, Angers, Musée Jean Lurçat et de la Tapisserie Contemporaine, 1997-1998
