Siege of Bayonne... Painting

"Siege of Bayonne by the army of the Marquess of Wellington." (Full title) Grand Jury Prize 2023 - 37th Summer of Arts, Étaples sur mer, France "Siege of Bayonne..." is a painting created by contemporary French artist painter Eric Bourdon with acrylic art paint on linen canvas stretched on a wooden support frame. The artwork is varnished and ready to hang. The acrylic painting on canvas by Eric Bourdon titled "Siege of Bayonne by the army of the Marquess of Wellington" reexamines the strange and peremptory statement of Maurice Merleau-Ponty : "The painter lives in fascination". If the painter lives in fascination, it is because his gaze is that of who sees as much as of who is seen. What is at stake here is the very question of our presence in the world, a presence threatened and besieged by Marquesses of Wellington of all kinds. It is through the aesthetic intentionalization of the presence in the city of Bayonne that the painter finds himself fascinated and effectively besieged hic et nunc in Bayonne by the army of the Marquess of Wellington. It would be clumsy to call this aesthetic consciousness an imaging consciousness, even if it possesses its main characteristics. It is not, as we can clearly see, a view of Bayonne of representative or photographic quality. The aesthetic consciousness considered however as an absolutely original relationship to being, it is up to this experience to reveal nothing else than a truth, and thus by this painting charged with pure intentionality to transport us to the most authentic Bayonne as we please, without fearing either its marquesses or its marchionesses. © Eric Bourdon