Since 1911, a stunning series of murals by the French Symbolist artist Odilon Redon have graced the library walls of the Abbaye de Fontfroide, an 11th-century Cistercian monastery in Narbonne, France. Framed by wooden bookshelves, Le Jour (Day) and La Nuit (Night) are each more than 20 feet long and depict sweeping landscapes, animals, humans and vivid floral arrangements. Above the door, a third mural, Le Silence (Silence), shows a figure reminiscent of a monk with a finger raised to his lips, surrounded by yellow blooms.
Earlier this year conservators removed the panels of the murals for the first time ever, to be loaned to an exhibition in Paris. Beneath, they discovered something no one had ever seen: colorful drawings, also by Redon, sketched directly onto the wall. Researchers are unsure why Redon drew them.
Were they tests for the final mural? Or were they aborted attempts at a fresco, painted directly on the library wall? Redon first came to Fontfroide under the commission of Gustave Fayet, a friend and prominent collector who bought the former abbey in 1908.
In a bid to transform it from a medieval religious space into a modern, creative one, Fayet funded all manner of renovations and installations, including a rebuilt church with art nouveau stained glass windows. After an initial visit in 1908, Redon returned to the abbey for a 10-day stay in March 1910. With the renovations on the library completed, Redon had a better sense of how his murals, which he was painting in Paris, would appear in the space.
D’Andoque de Sériège tells ARTNews he is “99 percent sure” that visit is when Redon drew the sketches, as a way to visualize the artwork in the room. It’s also physically a very hard job,” he adds. Seeing Le Jour, La Nuit and Le Silence is one of “the most thrilling art moments in the south of France,” the London Times’ Waldemar Januszczak writes.
But in the monastery’s library, they can usually only be seen “twice a month on a special tour.” Removed from the walls for the first time ever, the panels are now among the 86 artworks by Redon currently on view at the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris as part of an exhibition about Fayet’s legacy. The exhibition will include 10 canvases by Vincent van Gogh, 78 by Paul Gauguin and a smattering of works by Edgar Degas, Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, Pierre-Auguste Renoir and many more. Gauguin, in particular, was a passion for Fayet, who made his fortune in wine and also married rich.
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