Danchin (Laurent),

Saint-Dizier, the community where Marcel Dhièvre (1898-1977) decorated outside and inside of the small urban building that established his shop, has done a wonderful job in renovating the site in 2011.

On the website of the city an article about Dhièvre has been published, authored by french art critic Laurent Danchin (1946-2017).

In agreement with the author and Saint-Dizier's information department, I am happy to publish here a translation into english of this interesting article.

Laurent Danchin, Marcel Dhièvre's Petit Paris

In former times, painted houses, decorated by their inhabitants themselves, were numerous in the countryside, especially in regions and areas where wood prevailed. It was a distinctive aspect of folk art in the preindustrial era, where in taverns or farmhouses, painted doors and shutters, decorated gates, fireplaces and roof ornaments were not uncommon.

Not to forget the thousand and one ways to enhance the often unattractive decor of daily life by adding color to the facades and brighten the door- and window frames, the gutters, the roofs, the blind walls, etc.

In an urban context and in the modern industrial era with its new constructive materials - iron shutters, plaster, reinforced concrete- and buildings being locked in a straight jacket of very strict rules, the equivalent is much less common.

This is what first of all marks the originality and 'non-standard' character of the Petit Paris of Marcel Dhièvre. In the United States the experts without doubt would qualify this creation just as a typical case of contemporary folk art, that is to say urban folk art, characteristic of a period of change where the thread of tradition was broken.

In France, where criticism is more punctilious in describing the art of self-taught artists, inventive amateurs and other inspired handymen, one distinguishes naive art, art brut and singular art (art singulier), and these three terms have been or could be legitimately used for the little masterpiece of Saint-Dizier.

As to naive art, the Petit Paris has the dimension of being essentially secular, decorative and a bit judgmental (the fable of the fox and the crow). And its medallions of the Eiffel Tower or of the Arc de Triomphe, in praise both of the capital and of patriotism, even belong to the traditional cliches of naive art, while otherwise the ensemble does not manifest any religious or metaphysical dimension, unlike the Maison Picassiette in Chartres or the Maison Bleue of Euclide da Costa in Dives-sur-Mer, to whom the "breaker of plates from Eurville and La Noue" [1] might remind.

As to the doves, the butterflies, the birds, the dragonflies, with all the accompanying plant motifs, their contribution is clearly to give rhythm to the ensemble and furnish it for the sake of pure embellishment.

If however sometimes referrals have been made to art brut, this is done initially probably because of convenience, since the term has the connotation of unusual creations of autodidacts, or the incongruous survival of a form of craftsmanship or do-it-yourself artwork in an industrial era.

But then, there is at least one solid reason to use the term: the decorative overload or horror vacui, which seems to occur throughout the work, inside as well as outside, a well known characteristic of art brut, generally expressing an excess of energy, concentrated manically, obsessively, on a single purpose, an idée fixe.

Just as Robert Vasseur in Louviers, Marcel Dhièvre once he had undertaken his task of decorating, he could never stop. It is this obstinacy in escalation, which some neighbors deemed inexplicable and undoubtedly considered as "excessive."

So this is how the author of the Petit Paris appears, not as an artist - he disliked to be identified as such- but as a true creator.

Dhièvre, who was aware of the importance of his work, was, it seems, "not very talkative".

Despising comfort, he did not try to sell his work and he refused commissions. During thirty years, despite a paralyzed hand, he developed a ceaseless activity, to seduce a virtual public that rarely arose.

All this sounds familiar to lovers of art brut, who intuitively know the difference between the individual who is haunted day and night by a personal original vision and the simple sunday painter.

With regard to singular art (art singulier), finally, the Petit Paris is singular of course, that is to say it is unique and like nothing else (although historians might see a distant echo of the art rocaille) [2]

Which does not alter the fact, that the author belongs to the -nowadays international- big family of those who the photographer Jacques Verroust, who met him in extremis, a few months before his death, called Les inspirés du bord des routes (The inspired of the roadsides), the title of a famous book, published in 1978 with writer Jacques Lacarrière.

(added to OEE texts sept 2012)

[1] Eurville is the community nearby Saint-Dizier where Marcel Dhievre lived, and la Noue is the quarter where Petit Paris is located

[2] art rocaille developed after portland cement had been invented mid 19th century, and this material was used to make decorations and creative constructs