2024 Photography Exhibition

“Echoes of Romanticism”

French photographer Psyché Ophiuchus (born in 1987) derives inspiration from symbolist painting and the Pre-Raphaelite movement. The play of shade and brightness in her images has an enthralling quality, merged with an abundance of symbols and archetypes that invites viewers to decode their mysteries.

Psyché Ophiuchus grew up in Normandy, immersed in the folklore of Northern Europe and tales of William the Conqueror. Her early interest in psychology was combined with a passion for the visual arts. Whilst working as a clinical psychologist, she trained in photography, motivated by the desire to vivify her personal imagination.

Her inspiration comes primarily from the artistic movements of Symbolism, Art Nouveau and the Pre-Raphaelites. Her work explores the themes of imagination, mystery and dreams, through the use of symbols and archetypes. She currently lives in Brittany, in the legendary forest of Brocéliande, with her partner, the painter Yoann Lossel. Here she finds a strong creative response to the identity and folklore of the region.

Join us for a visual and literary journey, where each image and each phrase brings out the pure spirit of Romanticism, paying homage to Chateaubriand and his living legacy.

Translation by Wendy Mewes

**Dartmoor**

“I am attached to my trees; I have addressed them with elegies, sonnets, and odes. There is not one among them that I have not cared for with my own hands, that I have not freed from the worm attached to its root, from the caterpillar stuck to its leaf; I know them all by their names like my children: they are my family, I have no other, I hope to die beside them.”
*Memoirs from Beyond the Grave*, volume 1

**Perséphone**

“In the evening, this flower begins to open; it blooms during the night; dawn finds it in all its glory; by mid-morning it fades; it falls at noon: it lives only a few hours, but it spends these hours under a serene sky. What does the brevity of its life matter then?”
Description of certain sites in Florida, *Travels in America*

**Greek Reverie**

“I know of nothing more to the glory of the Greeks than these words by Cicero: 'Remember, Quintus, that you command Greeks who civilized all peoples by teaching them gentleness and humanity, and to whom Rome owes the enlightenment it possesses.' When one reflects on what Rome was in the time of Pompey and Caesar, on what Cicero himself was, one finds in these few words a magnificent eulogy.”
*Itinerary from Paris to Jerusalem*, chapter 1: Greece

**In the Footsteps of the Beautiful Lady**

“...at other times I plunged into the woods, I followed an abandoned path, a nameless stream, a little bird that fluttered with its mate from bush to bush. The robin that sang in the evening on a thatched roof moved me; the distant light shining in an isolated farm filled me with a thousand plans for retreat and happiness; I supposed that what I was looking for lived towards the distant hills, in the hamlet whose country church spire I could see. I listened to all the sounds that emanate from unfrequented places and lent an ear to every tree; I wanted to sing of these pleasures, but the words died on my lips.”
*Memoirs from Beyond the Grave*, volume 3, chapter 10

**Galatea**

“The plants will be reborn tomorrow; the noise and the dust have dissipated at this moment: here lies this new debris for centuries next to those that seemed to await it. Empires plunge in this way into eternity, where they lie in silence. Men are not unlike these ruins that come in turn to litter the earth: the only difference between them, as between these ruins, is that some fall before a few spectators, and others fall without witnesses.”
Tivoli and the Villa Adriana, *Travels in Italie*

**Autumn**

“A moral character attaches to the scenes of autumn: these leaves that fall like our years, these flowers that fade like our hours, these clouds that flee like our illusions, this light that dims like our intelligence, this sun that cools like our loves, these rivers that freeze like our life, have secret relations with our destinies.”
“My Joys of Autumn”, *Memoirs from Beyond the Grave*, volume 3, chapter 10

**Oblivion**

“I found myself between two centuries like at the confluence of two rivers; I plunged into their troubled waters, moving away with regret from the old shore where I was born and swimming with hope towards the unknown bank where new generations will land.”
“Review of the Two Worlds”*, Memoirs from Beyond the Grave*, volume 1

**The Villa** (shot in Saint-Malo)

“But what must be admired in Brittany is the moon rising over the land and setting over the sea. Established by God as the governor of the abyss, the moon has its clouds, its vapors, its rays, its shadows, like the sun; but like him, she does not retire alone; a procession of stars accompanies her. As she descends to the end of the sky on my native shore, she increases her silence, which she communicates to the sea; soon she falls to the horizon, intersects it, showing only half of her face which dozes off, tilts, and disappears into the soft swelling of the waves.”

*Memoirs from Beyond the Grave*, volume 1, chapter 6

**Aurora**

“What gentle light dawns in the East! Is it the young Dawn opening her beautiful eyes laden with the languors of sleep to the world? Charming goddess, hasten! Leave the bridal bed, take up the purple robe; let a soft belt hold it in its folds; let no shoe press upon your delicate feet; let no ornament profane your beautiful hands made to open the gates of day. But you are already rising on the shadowy hill. Your golden hair falls in moist curls on your rose-colored neck. From your mouth exhales a pure and fragrant breath. Tender deity, all nature smiles at your presence; you alone shed tears, and flowers are born.”
“Aurora” poem by Lucile, *Memoirs from Beyond the Grave*, volume 3, chapter 6

2023 Exposition de Gravures

“Brittany: a point of anchorage”

Thomas Godin Painter - Engraver

François-René de Chateaubriand wrote: ‘Knight errant though I am, I have the settled inclinations of a monk’.

This explains an intimate link in his life history, and so also in his work, between an appetite for the faraway and rootedness in a land elevated to the status of myth.

For a decade, the engraving work of Finisterien artist Thomas Godin (born in 1987) seems to have embodied this same link between here and elsewhere, the inner character of a polymorphic soul and the externality of the wide world.

From a magmatic eruption of the Philippine volcano Taal to the stylised ornamentation of Beninese masks, the engravings of Thomas Godin present the traces of his imaginative exploration of the world. And yet the landscapes and culture of Brittany constitute a very real point of anchorage, a kind of fundamental pivot from which his artistry can expand.

Like the illustrious tenant of the Chateau of Combourg, Thomas Godin makes his life the basic material of his work, where the subtle delicacy of the result contrasts with the mechanical weight of the creative process. The spirit of the artist and the hand of the artisan overlay each other to perfection.

The engravings presented here simply suggest forms, so those who study them are free to interpret them as they see fit. This satisfying freedom eliminates the sealed borders of reality to enlarge our horizons.

Translation by Wendy Mewes