A painter, engraver, and writer born in Marseille and deeply attached to Mediterranean culture, Valère Bernard ranks among the major artistic figures of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries in Provence. Trained between his native city and Paris, he developed a body of work nourished both by the study of antique models and by contemporary Symbolist explorations. During his stay in the capital, the young artist fully immersed himself in its cultural effervescence, studying at the École des Beaux‑Arts under the direction of Alexandre Cabanel and Pierre Puvis de Chavannes. It was in this context that he met Auguste Rodin, whose talent captivated him and whose influence would leave a lasting mark on his work.
His work is distinguished by a constant desire to move beyond the mere observation of reality in order to attain a moral and poetic dimension. For Bernard, the observation of antique models constituted, more than an academic exercise, a means of expressing the universal tensions of mankind between heroism and suffering, of which the present drawing is an excellent example.
In this sheet devoted to the theme of Laocoön, the painter takes up one of the most celebrated models of Western antiquity and offers a personal interpretation, liberated from any intention of historical restitution. Rather than reproducing the theatrical monumentality of the ancient group, the artist focuses his attention on the effect of movement and the tension between the bodies.
The composition revolves around the central figure of the Trojan priest Laocoön, whose tilted torso and bent arm convey a spectacular effort. Along a diagonal that heightens the instability and tension of the scene, the central figure inclines his gaze towards his son at the lower right, as if absorbed by the writhing serpents that coil around him, a silent witness to his suffering.
The highly sketch-like treatment of the limbs, sometimes merely suggested, reveals a process of observation close to that of a studio study. Like his master Rodin (ill. 1), Bernard seems to analyse the myth through the very construction of the human body: twists, counterbalances, and disequilibria become the true subjects of the drawing. This approach gives the scene an almost meditative quality, where the struggle against the serpents, barely perceptible, gives way to a reflection on the body’s resistance to an invisible force.
The work demonstrates a particularly subtle working process: it combines charcoal and gouache on several sheets of tracing paper. This layering allows the artist to construct the image in successive layers, playing with transparencies to adjust positions, volumes and rhythms.
The charcoal emphasizes the anatomical structure with a rapid, nervous line, leaving visible pentimenti and gestural explorations. The white gouache heightens the whole: it acts as a sculptural light catching the relief of the body and accentuating muscular tension. Finally, the ochre-toned background, left in reserve, unifies the composition and lends the scene an archaeological aspect, reminiscent of ancient frescoes.
Through his study of Laocoön, Valère Bernard reinvents Antiquity as an experience that is at once visual, intellectual and alive. This research seems to have informed his later works, notably a study entitled Serpent Entwining Bodies, recently offered on the Parisian art market (ill. 2). Combining the study of movement, technical experimentation, and symbolic meditation, this work reveals an artist for whom myth remains a universal language, capable of expressing with remarkable modernity the fragility and dignity of the human condition.
M.O
