Sublime and terror in Pierre Michon's work : the sanctification challenged by doubt
Abstract
Glory and its other face, terror, are central to the entire oeuvre of Pierre Michon. In Les Onze the almighty power becomes full Terror when it pretends to embody revolutionary legitimacy in a painting. The alchemy of the sublime here becomes suspect, since the painter and the picture are fictitious. Has Spirit abandoned History? Michon examines the precise moment when faith is on the wane. Convinced that glory is impure, he revisits the landmarks, manifest in art, when we “left religion” (Marcel Gauchet), incarnated in art: medieval (Abbés); postromantic modernity (Rimbaud le fils); and finally postmodernity (La Grande Beune). In Les Onze we traverse the terror of History without losing its meaning because a form of primitive violence finally links this terror to a primeval process.
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