Joint Exhibition Review:
Marguerite Burnat-Provins au pays des merveilles
at the Fondation Nuemann, Gingins
May 22 - September 14, 2003 and
Les peintures visionnaires: Marguerite Burnat-Provins
at the Collection de l'Art Brut, Lausanne
May 22 - September 14, 2003

Switzerland has many treasures. Often it is the country's medieval castles, churches and chateaus that take center stage, but equally as often one can discover great artists of the country's past. Included in the main attractions this summer are two exhibitions devoted to the life of Marguerite Burnat-Provins (1872-1952), a French-born artist who spent much of her life in (and devoted much of her life's work to) Switzerland.

Exhibitions devoted to female artists are less rare than they were only two decades ago, although they are still few and far between worldwide. The attraction to the Burnat-Provins exhibitions is not so much because shows devoted to women artists are still a somewhat rare event in Switzerland, or because another female artist of the past has been recovered from the dusty bins of archives and museum storage depots; the excitement about these two exhibitions derives from the fact that, without doubt, Burnat-Provins was an important Art Nouveau artist, a thought-provoking writer, and a vital activist for the preservation of Swiss culture.

I am embarrassed to say that although I consider myself a specialist in the history of women's artistic production, I had never heard of Burnat-Provins until I saw a poster for one of the exhibitions described herein. The publicity poster hung at the entrance to the Fondation de l'Hermitage in Lausanne, a museum currently holding a quite extensive exhibition of the works of Franz Kupka (1871-1957). As I was already in Lausanne, I went to see one of the two exhibitions devoted to Burnat-Provins, entitled Les peintures visionnaires: Marguerite Burnat-Provins, at the Collection de l'Art Brut. In retrospect the order of my visit was a mistake; the show at the Collection de l'Art Brut is really the second-half of the Burnat-Provins exhibition, held jointly with the Fondation Neumann in Gingins (about thirty minutes outside of Nyon). But the poster, of Burnat-Provins'ss Jeune fille de Savièse of 1900 (Musée Cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Sion) had intrigued me so much that I took the bus directly after Kupka to the Collection de l'Art Brut. It might be best, however, to discuss the exhibitions in the proper order; one should really visit the Fondation Neumann first, as the exhibition there is comprised of Burnat-Provins'ss early works.

Marguerite Provins was born in the town of Arras, in northern France, into cultured and comfortable society. In 1891 she journeyed to Paris, where she studied at the Académie Julian with Benjamin Constant and Emmanuel Frémiet. The exhibition at the Fondation Neumann opens with a cabinet card photograph from 1894 showing Constant surrounded by his many female students at Julian's, with Provins seated in the front row. In 1896 she married the architect Adolphe Burnat (her husband until their divorce in 1908) and moved to Switzerland, living with him in Vevey, Switzerland. She also developed a long lasting friendship with the painter Ernest Biéler, with whom she spent her summers (between 1898 and 1906) in Savièse in the Swiss canton of Valais.

The exhibition at the Fondation Neumann consists of three parts. Firstly, there are Burnat-Provins's early works, made up of many self-portraits and works on paper. Also on display are two important books she wrote, Petits tableaux valaisans (Vevey: Säuberlin et Pfeiffer, 1903), including illustrations by the author, and Livre pour toi (1907), a book exploring love and passion. The second part focuses on Burnat-Provins's connections to the Valais region of Switzerland. The exhibition concludes with a discussion and works from an artistic shop she opened in 1903 called "A la cruche verte" (At the Green Jug). She was also part of the L'école de Savièse, a group that included Biéler, Henry van Muyden (1860-1936), Paul Virchaux (1862-1930), Otto Vautier (1863-1919), and Raphy Dallèves (1878-1940).

As if writing, publishing, producing prints, designs for textiles, and making other forms of literary and visual art was not enough to keep her busy, Burnat-Provins also founded the Heimatschutz or Ligue Pour La Beauté, the ultimate goal of which was to preserve Swiss buildings, Swiss cultural heritage, and "la Suisse pittoresque." The Société d'art public, Section Vaudoise, Patrimoine Suisse (or Schweizer Heimatschutz), still in existence today, is the direct descendant organization that Burnat-Provins began in 1905.

All of the works selected for the exhibition are excellent examples of the Art Nouveau style, and even the naïve works of Burnat-Provins's youth are strong. There are two stand-out masterpieces in Gingins, Jeune fille de Savièse, used on the publicity, and Autoportrait, le doigt sur la bouche (c. 1900, Musée cantonal des Beaux-Arts, Sion). The first, shown at the 1900 Exposition Universelle, is a large work on paper depicting a lovely Swiss girl on the brink of womanhood, framed by two thick floral borders. The palette, consisting of mostly earth tones with green and white, includes touches of blue (in the girl's hair or hat ribbon) and bright orange (at the top, suggesting a sunset and, perhaps, the dawn of innocence). The second, a striking oil on canvas, depicts the artist with a piercing glance, a deeply intelligent expression, and a finger draped upon her upper lip, a common gesture, yet not often depicted, evoked by deep thought. It is a work undoubtedly related to her undated self-portrait entitled Le Silence (c. 1904, Private Collection, Switzerland). The simple change in the position of one single finger from draped over the lip to pressed against them tells an entirely different story.

The exhibition at the Collection de l'Art Brut tells a different story as well. This woman, so productive and so talented, suffered from recurrent hallucinations that began for her at the beginning of World War I. From these hallucinations she created her Ma Ville (My City) series, comprised of over 3000 figures that she claimed were "dictated" to her: "I endure them, cringe as I feel them coming, and simply cannot help drawing them." Burnat-Provins cannot, however, really be classified as an Art Brut artist, since she had received an art education and worked professionally for over two decades before her hallucinatory attacks. The Collection de l'Art Brut classified her art during her hallucinatory period under the title "Collection Neuve Invention." [This exhibition is just one in a number of Art Brut related shows this summer across the globe, including the exhibition La Clé des Champs at the Jeu de Paume in Paris (until Sept 28th).]

The show in Lausanne contains a small selection of the Ma Ville images whose theme is primarily female figures: elderly queens, fearless voyantes with serpentine crowns, and tortured, fear-stricken women constricted by birds or thorns. Aloïka, La Vielle Reine (circa. 1920, Private Collection, Lausanne), which depicts a queen of advanced age with large eyes and a piercing sideways glance, from whose crown spews a rainbow of colors, is a particularly arresting image. Asclibour Entouré (21 October 1929, Collection de l'Art Brut, Lausanne) is equally outstanding: this head of a figure of indeterminate sex wears possibly the saddest expression in the history of art. The person is surrounded by menacing, large-beaked birds, which seem to grow from the figure's body and could strike (at us or the figure) at any moment. The viewer senses the fears and horrors that war and global strife bring, and also realizes that the action of depicting and facing one's fears makes them real but also manageable. Certainly this was the case for Burnat-Provins, who healed herself through the creation of art.

The exhibition is accompanied by a short but informative catalogue, entitled Marguerite Burnat-Provins (1872-1952) De l'Art nouveau à l'art hallucinatoire. It lays the groundwork for further exploration of this compelling artist (in French only, ISBN 2-85056-626-8). The text included essays by an art historian (Jérôme Croisier), a literary critic (Catherine Dubois), a curator (Lucienne Peiry), a writer (Helen Bieri Thomson), and a psychologist (Pascal Le Maléfan) and provides an interesting overview of the work of Marguerite Burnat-Provins from a variety of perspectives.

If you are in the vicinity this summer, skip the castles. At least one of these exhibitions on Burnat-Provins is required viewing for anyone interested in art as the ultimate salve to humanity's ills.

[To learn more about the Association des Amis de Marguerite Burnat-Provins, visit www.amis-auteurs-nicaise.gallimard.fr]

[To learn more about the Société d'art public in la Tour-de-Peilz, visit www.heimatschutz.ch and /or www.sapvd.ch]

[To learn more about the Collection de l'Art Brut, visit www.artbrut.ch]

Caterina Y. Pierre
Fribourg, Switzerland
3 August 2003

Copyright 2003 © Caterina Y. Pierre; all rights reserved
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