Exotic Sculptures at the Château de Villandry
BERTRAND DE SAINT VINCENT

Near Tours, the graceful figures created by Marine de Soos offer a moment of serenity.

Le Pousseur de lune, Grand flûtiste, Grand pêcheur sur échasse or Grand pêcheur Badjo… Invited by the owner of the Château de Villandry, Henri Carvallo, to settle for the summer along the yellow-orange-hued paths that artistically shape the Jardin du Soleil created by Louis Benech, four sculpted figures stand out in the shade of lush vegetation. Their features are exotic. They come from afar.

“From childhood,” confides Marine de Soos, evoking the distant vision of faces with features both Asian and African that lulled her early years in Djibouti. For twenty years, this tall, dark-haired woman with restless inner silences has brought back to life—first in wax or clay, before casting them in bronze—images captured during her travels or drawn from her memories. Slowly, with small touches, the sculptor gives them life in the solitude of her studio.

Suspended in space and time, these slender silhouettes seem to emerge from the mist of a poetic reverie. Immemorial and seemingly impervious to contemporary chaos, their graceful forms emanate a feeling of elegance and plenitude; a gentle serenity. Caught in their intimacy, absorbed in what they are doing, they exist in the evidence of what is essential. With a sensitivity one senses is close to the surface, an emotion she admits she “cannot work without,” the artist restores them in their moving simplicity. The position of a body, a hand, or a foot gives their attitude a joyful momentum. They are alive: “I try to render the beauty of life,” comments the sculptor, “the grace of a moment.” In their gentle sobriety, these works bear witness to the culmination of a long inner journey. Observing them, one might say that within them Marine de Soos has found peace.

Sculpture exhibition, until September 30 at the Château de Villandry (37). Nuits des mille feux, this evening and Saturday, August 4.