Page 413 - Christian Maas Full Book

rings, corks, stamps, coins and banknotes from around the world, packs of cigarettes, match-

es ,tableware, diverse tools and devices, women shoes and clothes, eyeglasses, bells, hats, toy cars

etc... Besides, weren’t these accumulations prefiguring the series he would later create, bronze se-
ries that would make sense by their numbers and responding to each other, by each other?
Thenceforth we could see in the childish choice to bring objects together as an intuition, or better, a fore-

shadowing of the artistic dimension, collect for a better purpose, to discover the essence of each thing

and make them his own. Therefore, from the naïve childish creations to the first collections to which he
would always find some use, to the subsequent creations, a real continuity began to stand out.

But let’s get back to our humble hamlet. A few farms, snuggling tily together, as to pro-

tect each other, and all this green, so much green, too much green.. He was surrounded by this
colour that would become his emblem, and it would bewitch him, moss green, blue-hued ten-
der green, dark green, so dark it seemed black, or a green so pale it seemed to melt in the sky. And

the trees!... So many trees! ... Woods, sumptuous as a symphony, majestic woods, calling for humil-

ity in front of such a dazzling beauty. Forests that, as a child, would make you smaller, unveiling
in a flash the foliation’s splendour, which would frighten you while reassuring you, would hold you
until nightfall, would bewitch you and violently reveal the unbelievable beauty of the world. Christian was to

understand the strength in these trees, and their roots would become his. Like them, he would sink every day

a little more in this earth that he revered, while raising his hands to the sky. And the mystery unveiled itself, the
apparent contradiction in the artist faded away in the face of creation. Man of the earth and sky, son of na-
ture longing for infinity, plunged into the ground and turned toward the skies... So many wonders to be seen,

splashing and dazzling colours, what child wouldn’t grow greater out of it? It is in this way that the

modest hamlet in Haute-Loire appeared before his eyes like the stage of the divine creation. What
God did offer to men, he would progressively hoard it, make it his own to become a creator himself. In
turn, he would give birth to a world as he is. From his own hands, beauty would emerge. To this nature,

which lulled his childhood, he would incessantly pay a vibrant tribute, first submit to it then submit it,

restore its essence to our amazed eyes, find its prime purity, as if this hidden virginity was only waiting

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