‘Retour aux clans, aux castes: nouveaux BARBARES D’OCCIDENT, dans une France appauvrie, future province de l’Asie, notre apparition coïncidait avec la fin de l’Empire’.1
Augiéras remains a bit of an unquantifiable outlier, sometimes compared to Rimbaud. He was acutely aware of the pivotal moment in time he was living in. An established world order was coming to an end; the end of empire, the end of the power of the church, the end of Art. Or as we would prefer to say today; a post colonial, post religious, materialist world.
‘My drama – or my luck in the 20th century – was not to be an artist, to have to find in reality, at my own risk and peril, a lifestyle that held up against the splendor of the stars’.2
Looking for a Neo-paganistic, pan-theistic and a-moral (maybe better post-western-Christian-moral; certainly not immoral) outlook, his life as a work of art nourishing his eternal soul. Much has been made of his ‘pan-sexual’ admiration including male, female, boys, animals, trees, rivers, the moon and stars … and his marmite (cast iron cooking pot). I translated part of the section in Paul Placet’s Augiéras biography:
‘Descartes had his stove, why shouldn't I have a cooking pot to keep me company! … When it's the sage hour for work and my mind is working on her to find the right rhythm of the sentence, with the pen holder I gently search her bottom under the wooden skirt, without looking at her but feeling her curves and do you know that she kindly answers me in a little sonic echo that helps me find the secret of the exact length of a word, the weight of a comma, and those silent 'e's that express themselves gently with the end of the paragraph. She is perfect and resonates with it. Together I think we are doing a good job …
I question the good girl, she is sweet and tender and tells me that she wants to. I can do with her as much as is in my head, she will be my submissive wife in every way. So I push my brazier, choose some fragrant wood that smells of the forest and let myself be gorged by the intense heat which little by little takes me away from myself … So I smack her bouncing black belly and draw all the music of joy out of her …
It is my encounter with the Mother Goddess of all mythologies, the woman of the first homes, maternal, silent, whose memory sleeps buried and ambiguous. She reassures me and helps me rebuild a part of myself that is constantly slipping away – let's say my soul with my body …
I don't know if one day I write a treatise on Sexuality of the Pot … ’.3
Interesting for its erotic platonic expressions of sexuality, but more so because it gives an insight into Augiéras’ elaborate, ritualistic, meditative way of creating.
Les Eyzies
The region of the caves around the Vézère river (his self-declared true love), was the only place to shelter from all danger, protected by its sacred forces. Where Augiéras believed, somehow, his soul had reincarnated for centuries. The black Périgord;
‘… wild country, for those who know how to see, it is a land of spirits. A country of wizards. Templars, barons, priests, peasants, all here were more or less… still resounding with the cries of the first ages, keeping a little of the soul of all those who were magicians’.4
In Une adolescence au temp du Maréchal he describes the time he spend in the troglodyte one room house (with his friend Paul Placet in the early 1950’s). In the chapter L’Aurore; the dawn, he shares small facts and curious tendencies that could foreshadow some deep mutations towards a new ‘parallel civilization’. ‘… à l’extrême fin de nuit, à quel instant commence l’aurore? Mais quoi donc déjà?’ The house still exist, but has become difficult to reach as it has been more or less enclosed by the new extension of the Musée National de Prehistoire.
In the posthumously published Les barbares d’Occident he explains how he had started painting here to provide the suspicious villagers with an explanation for his being there. Having read most of his books; them too, written he claimed, with the ‘ulterior motive that the writing justifies everything’, chances to see his paintings are few. The commemorative year to mark the 50 years since his passing, provided the opportunity. A number of events were organized, in places he lived and worked across the Dordogne department; Les Eyzies, Domme and Montignac.
Major was the exhibition ‘Regards croisés - François Augiéras: les Rives Primitives’ mixed in with the collection of the Museé National de Préhistoire at Les Eyzies. Seeing the place were some of the paintings originated through the back windows was really special. As were the special COVID measures in place (15 December 2021 till 26 March 2022) that provided an exceptional amount of space for the (limited number of) visitors.
Traveling to Greece, visiting orthodox monasteries of mount Athos, to learn the techniques behind the painting of religious icons (peinture sur fond d’or). Augiéras found that the monks at night sang for ‘other gods’, older than Christ. It were the songs of springs, rocks and woods, song drawn from the source of life.
‘We are magicians from the most distant past and well oriented towards the future. Our beliefs last longer than Christianity; they provide a link between a youthful, sometimes naive pantheism and the higher level of consciousness that must come from the adoration of the stars. By painting better than by writing, I must arrive at this knowledge’.5
‘Any work of art is a Journey of the Dead: in the sense that one discovers in it one's soul which has no chance of surviving unless it reaches the eternal soul of men. At the point where I was, artistic creation was more important to me than anything’.6
The creative work demanded a lot from Augiéras, he did not paint with ease, each touch was the result of meditation. He could have written for days; painting was more difficult. The work once accomplished, became autonomous, it would seek its own way.
Augiéras, restless, impatient, was always preparing to leave for other encounters with the earth, the woods, far from the cities and villages of men. An atheist looking for God where He is no longer sought; in the forests, in the rising sun. ‘He is the light… Isn't God living gold that sings in the heart of an incredible silence!’
This story continues here: François Augiéras (II).
‘Back to clans, to castes: new BARBARIANS FROM THE WEST, in an impoverished France, future province of Asia, our appearance coincided with the end of the Empire’.
Augiéras F., 1990 (1957). Les barbares d’Occident. Fata morgana. ISBN 978.2.85194.123.7.
‘Mon drame – ou ma chance au XXe siècle – était de n’être pas un artiste, de devoir trouver dans le réel, à mes risques et périls, un style de vie qui tienne face à la splendeur des astres. …’
Augiéras F., 2006 (1959). Le voyage des morts. Grasset, Les Cahiers Rouges. ISBN 978-2-246-58382-0.
‘Descartes avait bien son poêle, pourquoi n’aurais-je pas une marmite pour me tenir compagnie! ... Quand c’est l’heure plus sage du travail et que mon esprit besogne sur elle à trouver le rythme juste de la phrase, avec le porte-plume je fouaille doucement son derrière sous la jupe de bois, sans la regarder mais sentant bien ses rondeurs et sais-tu que gentiment elle me répond dans un petit écho sonore qui m’aide à trouver le secret de l’exacte longeur d’un mot, le poids d’une virgule, et ces ‘e’ muets qui exprirent en douceur avec la fin du paragraphe. Elle est parfaite et résonne avec elle. Ensemble je crois qu’on fait du bon travail ...
J’interroge la bonne fille, elle est douce et tendre et me dit qu’elle veut bien. Je peut faire avec elle autant que dans ma tête, elle sera en tous points mon épouse soumise. Alors je pousse mon brasier, choisis quelques bois odorants qui sentent la forêt et je me laisse gorger par l’intense chaleur qui peu à peu me ravit à moi-même ... Alors je frappe à grands coups son ventre noir qui rebondit et tire d’elle toute la musique de la joie ...
C’est ma rencontre avec la Déesse-mère de toutes les mythologies, la femme des premiers foyers, maternelle, silencieuse, dont le souvenir dort enfoui et ambigu. Elle me rassure et m’aide à recontruire une part de moi-même qui sans cesse s’éloigne – disons mon âme avec mon corps ...
Je ne sais pas si un jour j’écritai un traité de la Sexualité chez la marmite …’
Placet P., 2006. François Augiéras, un barbare en Occident. La Différence, Collection MINOS. ISBN: 2-7291-1593-5.
‘Perigord noir… pays sauvage, pour qui sait voir, c’est un pays des esprits. Un pays de sorciers. Templiers, barons, prêtres, paysans, tous ici le furent plus ou moins … résonnantes encore des cris des premiers âges, gardent un peu de l’âme de tous ceux’là qui furent des magiciens.’
Augiéras F., 2006 (1964). L’Apprenti sorcier. Grasset, Les Cahiers Rouges. ISBN 978-2-246-51022-2.
‘Nous sommes des magiciens venues du plus lointain passe et bien orientés vers l’avenir. Nos croyances ont plus de durée que le christianisme; elles assurent un lien entre un panthéisme juvénile, naïf parfois et de le niveau supérieur de la conscience qui doit venir de l’adoration des astres. Par la peinture mieux que par l’ecriture, je dois arriver a cette connaissance.’
Placet P., 2006. François Augiéras, un barbare en Occident. La Différence, Collection MINOS. ISBN: 2-7291-1593-5.
‘Toute œuvre d’art est un Voyage des mort: en ce sens que’on y fait la découverte de son âme qui n’a de chance de survivre que si elle atteint l’âme éternelle des hommes. Au point où j’en étais, la création artistique m’importait plus que tout.’
Augiéras F., 2006 (1959). Le voyage des morts. Grasset, Les Cahiers Rouges. ISBN 978-2-246-58382-0.