This is a translation into english of the text that the french filmmaker Yannick Rolandeau has published on his website (not available anymore) about the creations Pierre Rapeau made in the Abjat Forest, in the Perigord area in France (see my note of November 28th, 2008).

The text has three parts: the announcement that Rapeau has died, an impression of Rapeau’s work and an outline of the documentary film Rolandeau wanted to shoot

This translation is republished here with friendly permission of the author.

Yannick Rolandeau, Pierre Rapeau

”Since a number of years, I have tried to mount a documentary project on the "paintings” by Pierre Rapeau, without much success. Maybe later, but hopefully. not too late. That is how it is”, I had written some time ago..

The project will never see the day, for Pierre Rapeau died october 5th, 2007.

On several occasions, most recently with Les Films du Lotus and its producer, Christopher Adler, we have tried to realise this documentary. In vain. As we all know the times are chilly, the makers want audience ratings and smaller topics do not interest them, despite the facade of generosity they show, to appear benevolent. I thank them for their reluctance, whether it concerns CNC, France 3 regions and so on. Now it is too late.

If an animal makes a walk through the forest, he is at risk to have a suprising encounter! And if he returns to his nest and tells his children what he saw during his night out, they could make fun of him.

"Do you know what happened this night? Do not laugh! That old dead tree has become a fabulous monster! That well known branch, well, it turned into a terrible snake. And the rock, where I would hide myself as a youngster, it took a human face! "

That is what this animal could tell. And a wanderer, who perhaps got lost, could in turn be surprised to find that the forest was transformed into a vast museum! For who has painted these women-unicorns, these sleeping beauties, these snakes, salamanders?

A man, for sure. And this man is called Pierre Rapeau. He was a professor of natural sciences and he decided, a few years ago, to return to the forest of his childhood (Brousse d’ Abjat in the Perigord) and to make paintings on rocks, and on trunks of dead chestnut trees. In secret, alone.

Makeup? Painting? Dendography! With this term it has been described by Jesper Svenbro, researcher at the CNRS (Centre National de Recherche Scientifique) and poet from Sweden.

In England it is called Land Art. Pierre Rapeau is a man of the land, of the forest, the trees. He is a man among the trees. Gradually, his name became known: newspaper articles appeared, television (Canal +, F3, M6) came along to meet him.

Pierre Rapeau is an artist who effaces himself, just like his paintings do, fading away, dying day by day, slowly, by the rain, the sun, the moss growing on trees or rocks that he painted.

This mortal art, that has self-eliminating properties like waste, is an outburst and a slow but inevitable extinction.

In former days, Pierre Rapeau, like most painters, used a canvas, but on a day, after his divorce, he abandoned this expedient, because as he said: "I am affected by silence." This is, no more nor less, exile, survival.

This art, that links nature and culture, highlights the congeniality between the various vegetal, animal and human kingdoms, that marks the necessity not to separate art from nature.

Pierre Rapeau believed that nature is disappearing and that this disappearance is not an apocalyptic end but a peaceful oblivion. He paints as if he is offering "one last dance in the forest."

These "paintings", hardly meant for other people, let alone the public art galleries and openings, just dedicated as they are to lovers of undergrowth and a few worms, ants and other sweeties, however, deserve a simple tribute before they disappear completely. Soon there only will be a few pictures that absolutely can not account for the dimension and the original presentation.

For a long time, Pierre Rapeau would not allow me me to do a film about him, he preferred to remain anonymous. The success of his paintings, the friendship that binds us for over ten years, made him finally decide to accept such a project. So this film will almost be a fable, a film about this man, about his art, about his passion for trees, connected to the past history, tales and legends of the Périgord, that is what I propose, a documentary with a mixture of painting, poetry and nature.

This subject requires an extensive investigative work of "clearing the undergrowth" : to shoot a forest and a man who paints rocks and chestnut trees of that forest, requires a long preparation and a deep knowledge of places and of the artist (scouting the terrain, light, material, soundscape, archival research, dialogue with the artist), groundwork to approach the subject which will facilitate its further realization.

The technical team will be minimal and the shooting will take place during two weeks, preferably in Super 16mm.

This documentary will be characterized inter alia by long, slow tracking shots through the forest or over a pond, a way to invite the viewer to make a walk and to explore the fabulous creatures of Pierre Rapeau. Emphasis will be given to the artist of course, not in the form of interviews, but by way of confidence. This is about a man who preferred "internal exile" at some point in his life and who considers his work as inextricably linked to loneliness.

The use of archives will be done by Pierre Rapeau’s evocation of the past of the Abjat forest, a spot that is emblematic of a man bound to his land, a history that is both geographically (the caves of Lascaux are nearby and Pierre Rapeau's work is inspired by them) and individually (tales and legends of Périgord that his grandmother told him, are at the heart of the fabulous imagination of the artist).

Poetry is a source of inspiration for Pierre Rapeau. The sentence of René Char "Des yeux fous dans la forêt cherchent en pleurant la tête habitable (wild eyes in the forest weepingly seek the head to live in) is an obvious example. The artist has always sought to reconcile poetry, painting and nature in his work.

Music will hold an important place: folk music in the brief history of the Abjat Forest, and some classical scores: Guillaume de Machaut, Maurice Ravel, Serge Prokofiev and of the still unknown musician Charles Koechlin, emphasizing the poetic and enchanting atmosphere of the forest and the work of Pierre Rapeau, to give musical coherence to this film.

(added to OEE-texts jan 2010)