We met a copy artist at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Lille

Did you know that copying a painting is an art that dates back to ancient times? meeting with Painter-copyist at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Lille, Catherine Courdil-Bouthinon. He has a studio in Roubaix. At the Lille museum, he explains to us the meaning of his work and the very advanced methods of respecting the process of “re-creating” the work. Away from counterfeiters!

Reproducing and promoting the original as faithfully as possible in order to better interpret the layers of meaning beneath the layers of color is generally what an expert copyist of master paintings is looking for. He does not add his “personal touch” at any cost, he tries to faithfully penetrate the secrets of the creation of the painting, its history, style, technical features… He only changes (enlarges) the format. or reduces ), sometimes repeats only a part of the selected masterpiece and is dedicated to works that have entered the public domain.

At Catherine Courdil-Bouthinon in the Palais des Beaux-Arts, in front of her easel, we see her color box, her brushes, her handstand, her white coat, her long experience, her technical expertise, her kindness to share with her. passion…

It has nothing to do with “automatic” or even sophisticated “reproduction” (photographs, “copy-paste” by printers), and nothing to do with counterfeiters or even scientists “cheating goods”.

We are so educated today in the terror of commercial consumption, therefore competition, and therefore counterfeiting and plagiarism, that copying a work of art is sometimes misunderstood. However, for centuries copying the masterpieces of the masters was the basis of the artistic initiative. Each newbie brought his “way” only after this long apprenticeship.

Copy to understand

“Copying has been practiced everywhere since ancient times,” he tells us, to teach the “rules of art,” but it was the only way to reproduce unanimously (so-called “consecrated”) works. Let us imagine that the young Raphael copied the graceful madonnas and beautiful landscapes of Perugino (one of his masters). Famous examples are legion, both past and present: think Delacroix copying Rubens, Picasso ‘assimilating’ Ingres…

“The Louvre was first created during the revolution for this: to transmit the processes, the ‘genius’ of the Ancients,” explains Catherine.

Today, copyists from all over the world still parade there (50 “easels” are allowed a quarter after a strict selection); they undertake not to sink into the caustic devices of pastiche and subversion. But real copiers are few at the moment. Work too much? Do you require a lot of humility, a lot of practice, a lot of patience?

Dozens of classics to his credit

He copied Vermeer’s famous “Girl with a Pearl Earring”, Rubens’ “Descent from the Cross” (in Lille) several times: he always strives for progress, he does not stop studying the books of experts, including the contributions he sometimes gets. coincides with the claims of research laboratories!

Indeed, many modern processes allow us to explore the secrets of the production of an old painting: “Wooden lamp” (reflectography under ultraviolet or infrared radiation), binocular magnifying glass, X-ray photography, studying the tension changes of the canvas (cracks (cracks) caused by heat and humidity, the calligraphy of the signature, the “repentance” of the artist, the chemical composition of solvents, “mediums” (“preparations made on the basis of binders and diluents”), pigments… All these studies are the scientific basis of his profession.

Copy in public

Catherine Courdil-Bouthinon, for ten years, almost every Saturday morning at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Lille, has been making public copies of sometimes very popular works exhibited there; currently Jan Sanders van Hemessen’s Vanity (1535) and its enigmatic angel with butterfly wings. It takes an average of three months, 5-6 hours a day to copy a work. He favors oil paintings from the 15th to 17th centuries because they have a precious spiritual, mystical dimension that he rarely finds from the Enlightenment.

Catherine spoke several times about Pieter Breughel the Younger; the latter copied “The Count of Bethlehem” (1566) thirteen times (between 1605 and 1620!) by his father, Pieter Breughel the Elder. Since 2015, several books have been interested in Catherine: mise en abyme and the fascinating filiation of copies of these copies.

Remaking a 16th-century painting in the 21st century: what are the recipes for this tour? If you observe Catherine Courdil-Boutin in front of her – painstakingly – created painting and she “talks about her work” to you, you will have to admit that it is possible.

If you listen to him more closely, you will discover the complexity of his enterprise and the impressive culture required to restore the works of the great masters.

Indeed, “the soul of the painting is obtained by absorbing the works of the artist. Space and time should fit into the square of the canvas.” In the end, you are in front of an artist who begins to compose a new work of art, because his “copy” is as inimitable as the “original” he “recreates”.

Adoption of ancestral processes

In order to “repeat” the work of a great master, it is not enough to believe in “appropriating” it – an impossible operation for a neophyte, the painting must stand in time. Art is inseparable from technique.

It is necessary to think about the quality of the support: each copy is made on a traditional support (canvas stretched on a frame or a wooden panel), covered with a preparation that allows you to control the absorbency of the support and which, in addition to ensuring the adhesion of the pictorial layer, plays the main role and contributes to the final aesthetic value of the painting contributes.

“The spirit of the colors comes from the delicate use of various oils and glues, many pigments and coatings, varnishes, special use of chalk mixed with glue.” The superimposition of pictorial layers (oil, dry, harden) (“fat on lean”) gives the work a velvety feel.

Depth is achieved by superimposing very diluted, very transparent materials. The “mediums” mixed with the picture material offer the artist all means of expression from opacity to transparency, from “matt” to gloss, from fineness to impasto.

The intertwining of branches in the Brueghelian winter landscape of the Lille Museum is due to the delicacy of the brushes (hundreds!) and their correct use. And the composition? Another problem that must be solved with a deep knowledge of the rules of geometry. The horizon line, chromatic perspective, the use of the Golden Number… a set of concepts that contribute to the perfection of the work in the correct presentation of proportions. Studying for hours while painting, anatomy, nature, color…finding the right gesture, documenting yourself, constantly visiting museums, remembering Boileau’s Alexandrine words: “Work twenty times, return your work.” »

Symbiosis between art and science

The preparation varies between times and schools of painting, and may consist of layers of glue followed by layers of chalk diluted in glue, or a preparation based on oil and pigment. “The sketch is then made ‘in juice’ with very diluted, very transparent pictorial materials, or painted on the surface with a very fine paste,” he shows us. The first layers of the sketch are liquid, very thin, the later layers are progressively richer. Each layer of the painting must be processed to provide the next one with a certain porosity and to ensure that the different layers “hold”. The imaged layer can be covered with the next one only when it is sufficiently hardened. Therefore, due to the thickness and “binder richness” of the pictorial material, it is necessary to observe the deadlines between the two sessions.

“Third art” workshop

Chalk, black chalk, red chalk, graphite mine, charcoal, pastel, pen and ink, wash… oil paint, red chalk, black chalk, graphite, portraits to order after nature or photo: everyone can admire their clients on their website dozens of paintings he copied for

We know “7th art” (cinema) and 6th (stage). The first five were identified by Hegel in his “Aesthetics”. 1st architecture, 2nd sculpture, 3rd “visual arts” (painting and painting), 4th music, 5th literature.

Jean Louis Pelon

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