"THE HYPOTHESIS OF THE STOLEN PAINTING" "Human consciousness has expired." "On the cadaver he squats, gloating, mired." "Seated in triumph, he turns to crow." "Each time he deals the corpse a blow." "Victor Hugo" "What do you see?" "What do you feel?" "Is it pain or is it ecstasy that keeps you afloat in space?" "P.K. BAPH." "VI. 141." "No sinister adjuncts lend their banal significance." "No hint of melodrama injects its facile role." "Simply by interpreting in his sober, magisterial style, the dynamism of these figures and by capturing gesture and attitude, the painter reveals the ardent fanaticism of these men, their implacable purpose." "J. Alboise in L'Artiste, 1889." "Ingenious, somewhat studied compositions recalling the witty groupings employed with felicity by Gérôme." "Adding a novelist's skills to those of the painter, he plays cleverly on our curiosity as spectators who arrived too late." "M.F. Lajenevais, Revue des Deux Mondes, 1889." "Rare is the artist so assured of the present and the future." "He is not merely an instinctive master of composition." "His sense of history preserves him from the pitfalls of dusty scholarship." "It was also said," ""Always a painter, Monsieur Tonnerre" ""is now an artist, in the highest sense of the word."" "And yet..." "Alas!" "And yet..." "How could such paintings provoke a scandal?" "And yet..." "How is it that only six paintings..." "Seven." "How is it that a simple scandal, a mere stir in fashionable Paris became transformed into an affair of state?" "Alas." "Today we look and look again at these paintings." "There is nothing shocking about them, no common link between them, not even a unity in style." "In some, the striking thing is the attention to detail but also a lack of care in the overall composition." "In others, the flowing strokes and vivid colours but also the static quality of the compositions." "Y et others indulge the excessive illusionism of a theatrical décor" "but also seem contradictory in their composition." "That these six paintings should pose such questions is understandable." "Seven paintings." "But a scandal, intervention by the authorities..." "Alas!" "Thrice alas!" "And yet..." "And yet only seven paintings preserve their mute testimony." "A scandal so great that the authorities, for once in agreement, felt impelled to bury it." "The press was silent, spies infiltrated the salons and others, diversionary scandals, seemingly by chance, overtook the people most concerned with these paintings executed more or less skilfully by an obscure disciple of Gérôme:" "the painter Tonnerre." "Two comments..." "Two comments concerning the paintings." "And two further comments." "Two further comments, but these of a more general nature." "Firstly, the seven paintings do have a common factor." "Although one of them was the object of particularly virulent attacks" " we shall see why our parents were driven to react in this way - and although two or three others among the paintings were held to be purely and simply shocking, the fact is that the scandal centred on the exhibition as a whole." "On all the paintings, each and every one of them." "Secondly, if we closely examine each painting in turn, we cannot but be struck by a number of curious details." "This one, for example." "We see two Crusaders in the act of playing chess." "The composition is theatrical, you say." "Yes, but what does that mean, "theatrical?"" "The gestures?" "The positioning of the figures?" "No, not at all." "The effect you describe as theatrical derives from one simple detail:" "the lighting." "From the two rays of light, one entering by the window on the right, the other by the window on the left." "Which implies a world with two suns." "This, I might add, is only one example." "To turn now to the two comments of a more general nature." "Let us consider the historical context and say, firstly," "the paintings did not show, they alluded." "And what our fathers saw, at the point when the eight powers intervened, was The Ceremony." "And, at that time in ceremony, whose ritual is now lost, which today we can scarcely begin to imagine, the ceremony was on the verge of becoming a matter of common knowledge." "This could not go on." "Which is why, some months after the exhibition, police raided the painter's house and burst in on the ceremony." "And why the authorities had no alternative." "They had to act quickly." "Secondly, the painter Tonnerre defended himself." "From Italy, he made his appeal." "Affectingly, by letter, he declared his innocence." "Cleverly, he turned the rules of the game upside down." "He declared that the ceremony did not exist." "That what was known by that name, what the police saw with their own eyes was merely a re-enactment of his paintings through medium of tableaux vivants, no more no less." "We can imagine today what the reaction to this defence must have been within the ranks of the eight powers." "We can guess how some people must have smiled ironically and others laughed quite openly." "It was inevitable that our parents should have reacted in this way." "But we have other means of analysis today." "And I think I know what the painter Tonnerre really meant to say when he protested his innocence." "Guilty as sin, he was." "What a terrible revelation." "They were the ceremony." "And yet..." "The paintings do not show, they allude." "The paintings... re-enacted through the medium of tableaux vivants do not allude." "They show." "After opening the door the collector shows us into a drawing-room overlooking a large garden." "He approaches the window." "With the aid of binoculars, we can see at the foot of the garden the reproduction of a mythological scene in a tableau vivant." "Near a lake, the Huntress muses with her bow." "Sheltered by the foliage," "Actaeon's eyes waver between this vision of Diana and a glimpse of his prey." "Is the third figure really necessary?" "Why this third person?" "And why does he hold a mirror?" "Well, the mirror you mention would have been to dazzle the prey." "In this sense the role of the third figure in the Diana and Actaeon would assume an unexpected importance." "It will indeed have escaped no one that, extraneous to the scene, this third figure invades it purely to watch the watcher." "In another sense, it is not impossible that the prey is none other than Actaeon himself, metamorphosed as a punishment for having dared cast his eye on the goddess." "Y et what is there in this painting to make us think it is the first of a series?" "What leads us from it to the one we may consider the next in sequence?" "At the risk of upsetting a somewhat facile train of thought," "I would like to inject a certain doubt." "Suppose the Diana the Huntress theme were merely a red herring." "Suppose the anomalous elements were merely snares." "And that the trail must be sought elsewhere." "A trail indicated by a detail, minor but nevertheless exposed to full view." "Let us allow that, as an absurd piece of hunting equipment, the mirror offers a thematic clue which might further our pursuit." "The collector is asking us to ignore the narrative element, the arrangement of objects and even the object of the character's scrutiny." "Look at the mirror." "The mirror reflects the sun's rays." "Let us trace their direction." "Here we see the sun's rays reflected by the mirror and falling onto a basement window." "A game of chess is interrupted by the arrival of a Crusader." "One then realizes that the sun is entering by the window on the left while the same rays, reflected by the mirror from the preceding painting are cast on the scene through the window opposite." "Thus the riddle of the two contradictory rays is solved." "The Arrival of the Crusader." "I think that the untenable aspect of the theme will not have escaped anyone." "Whence comes this Crusader?" "What does he interrupt?" "How, coming directly from the Crusades, could he burst in on the scene and surprise the players?" "And these players, what are they hiding that they should be surprised by the arrival of a new character?" "A new character..." "The disturbing presence of the page will, I think, have escaped no one." "The page who makes a great show of his consternation before the other characters in the painting whereas we, and we alone, can glimpse his secret smile." "If we accept that this painting follows the preceding one in the series, which can we take to be the next, and why?" "I think you will have noticed that the characters are Templars." "As you see, the painter has respected the hierarchy within the Order." "Let us now consider this hierarchy." "On the lowest level, almost marginal to the composition, is the page." "Then the two Templars, equal before the Grand Master." "Respecting the painter's intentions, let us carefully observe the Grand Master." "What is his attitude?" "Let us examine with renewed attention each detail of his clothes, the severity of his eye, the clenched left hand." "Let us accept the astonishing gesture of his right, indicating the mirror." "A mirror reflecting what?" "The window behind which, in the first painting, another mirror reflects the sun shining through this painting's window." "Crude conjecture." "Perhaps one might now venture the hypothesis of a group of paintings whose interconnection is ensured by a play of mirrors." "Conjecture." "One might see the painter's oeuvre as a reflection on the art of reproduction." "Certainly not." "That is not the way to look at this painting." "The effect must be considered in a totally different way." "Otherwise we shall become entangled in the snare set for us." "In this particular case, the thing to be considered is the form of the mirror." "With due care, however, for therein lies another snare." "We must not linger over the significance of this form to the theme." "It is common knowledge, more common within each day, that the crescent moon is a Saracen symbol." "No one can fail to be aware that the presence of so impious a token within the Order is surprising, to say the least." "Today, though they find it difficult to accept, everyone knows that the presence of this token in the Order was, alas, probable." "But this is of no consequence." "None of this matters." "What matters is the form itself, the fact that this crescent should be reproduced in another painting which I now invite you to consider." "A series of paintings linked by minor details sometimes skilfully inserted extraneously to the theme:" "the ray of light in the mirror, the second mirror in the shape of a crescent." "And now..." "I would like to draw your attention to the extreme care with which the painter has placed the mirror." "So that it is really impossible to err in arranging the tableau vivant." "Is such care likely?" "What else is the painter's purpose but to draw our attention to what is reflected in the mirror when the tableau is arranged?" "Look, it is he one sees reflected in the mirror." "But now let us consider the lighting effects." "The chiaroscuro, obviously, is arbitrary." "Why should certain figures, perhaps not the most important, be privileged and others remain a shadow?" "But setting aside the lighting, let us concentrate on the figures." "All becomes clear." "Let us reverse the lighting." "Let what was plunged in shadow emerge into the light and what was clearly visible return to the darkness." "The mask." "There is the link with the next painting." "We must then ask:" "which is that painting and why does the mask lead us to it?" "Now the collector explains that this painting does not exist." "That it is the stolen painting and that all we know of it is that there was a mask." "A certain number of problems now present themselves." "If the previous painting does indeed lead us to this one, then obviously there will be a hiatus in the series." "And with the trail lost, how can we establish the order of the paintings?" "No one will ever know what in this painting was to have led us to the one I postulate as the next in the series." "Here is the scandalous painting rejected by the Salon in 1887." "Apparently exhibited in private, it was, inexplicably, acquired by the state." "What, in this painting, could have provoked a scandal?" "Was it enough simply to show people of some social prominence in attitudes which are in fact quite commonplace while claiming that they had agreed to act as models for the painting?" "Might this painting not be interpreted as a means of stifling the rumours which lay behind the scandal and which tarnished the reputation of a respectable family?" "But in that case, where would the scandal lie?" "Maybe... the fact of having posed for this scene from family life, no matter how commonplace or innocent it be, maybe this fact in itself was felt to be totally unacceptable." "In fact, although the scenes are indeed commonplace, it is nevertheless true that the fact of having exhibited themselves, the fact of having assembled the protagonists of a scandal might be interpreted as ostentation," "as acknowledging and condoning what public opinion would have described as an "unspeakable vice"." "But are these scenes indeed so innocent?" "Can we assert that they are entirely free from certain obscurities?" "Who knows but that these scenes reveal aspects of the scandal instantly recognizable to the initiated?" "There is certainly something disturbing about these scenes from daily life." "We may note that in each of them someone has just committed, or is preparing to commit," "That in both cases, a third character is in the act of watching" "and that through his air of frank disapproval, this character provokes the desire" "to commit the forbidden act." "A disapproval that he displays to the spectator but conceals from the characters." "Perhaps in order to guard himself against any eventual accusation of complicity." "The grouping tells us, however, that those who have been discovered, as it were, are pointedly turning their backs on the spy." "Knowing this, and accepting this situation, the spy therefore does indeed participate as an accomplice in the public exposition of the moments preceding and following the reprehensible act." "And since the reprehensible aspect of this act resides in the intention," "is not the exposition of these moments much more so?" "Does this not open up limitless possibilities for interpretation?" "Possibilities reaching beyond the act itself," "which, as we need not now deny, did indeed take place." "But was this not enough to provoke a scandal?" "Furthermore," "I should add that these events and public rumours have come down to us by way of a little roman-à-clef." "A brief résumé of this little novel will give us some idea of the enormity of the events which rumour endeavoured to conceal." "The beginning of the novel describes a betrothal scene." "Tha Marquise de I. has invited her friends to a reception to announce the engagement of her niece O." "who is also her ward, to the Marquis de E., a friend of the family." "The Marquise is presented from the outset as a domineering woman swayed by vaulting ambition." "The anonymous author makes no secret of his sympathy for the Marquis, portrayed as a man of thirty-five, kindly by nature and forced by the ruin of his family into a marriage of convenience." "The Marquis is shown as the victim of a cunning plot devised entirely by the Marquise de I." "At the end of the first chapter the Marquise suspects her niece's betrothed of a questionable interest in young L., her nephew and ward." "The latter is described as a boy of very winning ways not entirely unaware of the interest he has awakened in the Marquis de E." "The author has earlier informed us that the Marquise had planned to marry the two cousins, the young L. and the young O., thus uniting the fortunes of the collateral branches of the family." "In securing her niece's hand, the Marquis de E. spoiled her plan." "But her discovery of the interest shown in the boy by the Marquis leads her to devise the sinister plot which is revealed in Chapter Two." "This is to encourage the relationship between the Marquis and young L." "in order to provoke a scandal which, by ruining the reputation of the Marquis, would make impossible the marriage to the girl O." "At this point, matters are complicated by the entry of a new character," "El Señor de H.," "Knight of the Order of Malta and Spanish envoy to the Holy See." "Since this person is also attracted by young L., he provokes the jealousy and rivalry of the Marquis de E." "E. and H., being friends of long standing in view of their affiliation to the same secret society," "agree to settle their quarrel through a game of chess with the loser undertaking to renounce all claim to the hypothetical favours of the boy L." "The betrothed girl happens to witness this scene." "Perceiving the disquieting implications of the scene without really understanding, she tells to her aunt." "The latter, we learn in Chapter Four, is now resolved to act." "In pursuance of her plan, she therefore summons the Marquis." "Arriving at the appointed place, the Marquis finds the Marquise partially unclothed challengingly exhibiting herself before his eyes." "Understanding the allusion to his lack of interest in the fair sex, he loses his temper and offers to strike her." "The girl, witnessing the scene, assumes it to be a lovers' quarrel." "Convinced that she is betrayed, she determines to confront her aunt." "In Chapter Five, realizing that she has aroused new feelings between the betrothed, the Marquise summons the girl O. to a clandestine meeting." "At this meeting, the Marquise apprises the girl of her fiancé's unnatural tastes." "Seeing this revelation as a mere stratagem to part her from him, the girl reacts violently." "Their quarrel is witnessed by H." "who decides to propose an alliance with the Marquise with a view to alienating the boy L. from the Marquis." "Thus it is that, for the fist time in the story, young L. takes the initiative and confesses his love to the Marquise." "This scene is witnessed by the girl, now doubly jealous of her aunt but unable to choose in her heart between young L. and the Marquis." "She confides in her fiancé." "These revelations cause the Marquis to fall into a deep depression intensified when he witnesses a strange scene between young L. and H." "In this scene," "H., a stag's head in his hand, is attempting to persuade the boy to pose as Diana the Huntress." "The Marquis, bursting in the scene, provokes his friend H. to anger." "He reproaches him with his lack of integrity in failing to keep his promise to renounce the boy." "Intervening to reproach E. for having abandoned him to a foreigner, the boy aggravates the quarrel." "In Chapter Ten, we come to the scene of the duel between E. and H." "during the course of which young L." "is simultaneously arbiter, second, sponsor and occasion of the duel." "In despair, believing herself the cause of the duel, O. intervenes." "While the Marquise watches from a distance, at last savouring the scandal she has anticipated for months." "Unfortunately, both adversaries miss their mark and H.'s bullet accidentally wounds the girl O." "Police arrest the protagonists but intervention of E.'s family secures their prompt release." "Accused of attempted homicide and obliged to plead insanity to escape the law," "H. is confined to an asylum not far from Paris." "In the penultimate chapter, we find the girl O. affected by her wound." "In the delirium of her fever she sees herself as St. Theresa and her cousin as the angel conducting her to heaven." "The Marquis visits her, but seeing him as the devil himself, she repulses him violently." "In renewed delirium, now imagining herself to be a Babylonian harlot, young O. repulses her angel of redemption and still seeing the Marquis as the devil, implores him to conduct her to hell thus obeying a command given by St Theresa." "Following a long and grievous convalescence," "O. forgives the Marquis de E." "We find all the characters assembled at a family gathering." "Suddenly Señor H. reappears, having fled the asylum with the aid of members of the secret society, alerted by the Marquise." "H. publicly accuses E." "of failing to keep his promise by continuing to importune young L." "The latter intervenes to accuse H. of alienating him from his aunt." "The girl O., finally grasping the situation, breaks with E." "But the story does not end as the Marquise would have wished." "That very night, the boy L. is carried off by H." "aided by members of the sect and taken to their mansion in the rue de la Pompe." "Promptly alerted by the Marquise, the police intervene and interrupt a strange ceremony involving young L." "as both priest and sacrifice." "The protagonists all find themselves in prison and are released on payment of a substantial bail." "Young L. is found hanged in his cell and the talk is either of suicide or a crime." "Can we accept that what lies behind these paintings is merely a novel?" "We can then say that the protagonists simply portrayed the novel's theme as if it were a ceremony." "We have not yet seen or said everything." "Two paintings remain." "We have travelled a difficult road to come this far." "Will we manage to travel it to the end?" "Will we remember all the arguments and counter-arguments developed?" "Will we have time to expound other doubts, to point out the innumerable thematic clues to the intrigue?" "In this painting we may perceive certain elements of previous paintings." "This group, for instance, recalls the painting Tortures of the Inquisition." "This one, The Game of Chess." "This character evokes Diana the Huntress." "But the other characters?" "The naked women?" "The clowns and demons?" "We shall explain them through the hypothesis of the stolen painting." "The collector once again requires us to forget the thematic clue and to concentrate on the composition." "In this painting, as in the preceding ones, characters are grouped in threes." "Each group of three recalls a scene from an earlier painting, although there is, so to speak, no linking story." "Let us turn our minds back to the previous painting." "From there, let us follow the thematic clue." "We see that the story moves from painting to painting like the hands of a watch." "Let us ask where this series of scenes from family life is taking us." "We will now examine the characters of the scandalous painting." "Let us trace each character's gestures, painting by painting." "We now see that, in moving from one painting to the next, the characters are slowly completing the circle, each in his own way." "The circle is not perfect, you will say." "But what we have here are really curves which form circles of unequal diameter if completed by imagination." "And these circles may be classified roughly in three groups, of decreasing importance." "And the circles of each group are combined, their respective product is, of course, a sphere." "Spheres which we can in turn imagine as combined or not but which still evoke spheres." "But any movement effected by a human being leaves an imaginary trace comparable to a curve." "We shall return to this." "Curved lines which suggest circles." "Circles leading to the sphere." "The blazing sphere which dominates the last painting in the series." "Baphomet, an androgynous demon." "The principle of non-definition." "In defiance of time." "An immaculate body without soul caressed by the breezes which are wandering, bodiless souls." "Assailed through the seven orifices by wandering souls seeking their reincarnation." "Souls already despairing of the day of resurrection." "Is this not what we have seen repeated in all the paintings?" "Is it not the very heart of the paintings, their occult theme?" "The real cause of the scandal?" "Worshipped by the Templars, religion within a religion of a state within a state?" "Still worshipped today in secret ceremonies masquerading as mere debauches." "So that is the real reason for the scandal?" "It is." "But if all the paintings portray the cult of the androgyne, what is the role of the painting Diana the Huntress?" "I shall explain through the hypothesis of the stolen painting." "The collector, visibly exhausted, now invites us to consider the Tonnerres from a fresh standpoint." "What you have seen are merely some of the ideas these paintings have inspired in me over the years." "Hence, perhaps, their fragmentary nature." "But today... now that I have once again recreated The Ceremony for you," "a doubt assails me." "And I ask myself if the effort was worthwhile." "I have, I confess, many doubts." "The enigma has been solved, certainly, and that should satisfy us." "But we are not satisfied." "What matters to us, we humble mortals, that the authorities should fear the celebration of a cult because this cult is the expression of something more vast?" "What matters to us, we humble creatures of this world," "if this "something more vast"" "be a revival of the cult of Mithras?" "Can we summon interest in the fact that a cult like this is, in effect, the equivalent of military discipline?" "And that military manoeuvres, pomp and parades are merely one aspect of the ceremony these paintings complete." "Can we feel fear at the revelation that military life and all that these paintings represent are the ceremony" "whose solemn expression signifies the mutual annihilation of the celebrants... total war?" "No, I do not think so." "I do not think so." "Any such elucidation would take too long for us to grasp." "Furthermore, the cunning stratagem whereby it is divided in three superimposed riddles would hardly speed us towards our goal." "And yet," "I know that something will be retained." "I know that at this very moment the paintings are beginning to fade from memory." "I know that the snare set by the painter Tonnerre is beginning to show results." "The gestures, the same gestures repeated from painting to painting" "loom up, in isolation," "to better efface the paintings themselves and what they represent." "So, let us forget." "Let us allow the paintings to fade... to vanish... to vanish... so that all that remains is the isolated gestures," "the gestures of The Ceremony." "So saying, the collector courteously shows us to the door." "Subtitling:" "B.B. COM" " Paris"