My personal "Apocalypse"

I wanted to figure the Apocalypse as the atmosphere of our times. As a basis to this work 1 used my exhibition in Paris in 1957 entitled "The Apocalypse".
That exhibition consisted of a sequence of paintings taking their inspiration from atomic plants, mechanical civilization, shooting places, rockets, the disappearance of forests, pollution etc and finally the voyage into the cosmos before the first flight into space by soviet astronauts.
My aim : to picture the fear of the year 2000, something like that of the year 1000.
The intense technological advance, the earth becoming inhuman, the horrible overgrowth of atomic and chernical weapons, the ever-growing numbers of the human race, the dangerous rise of the sea levels, the never-ending disappearance of animal species, man shutting himself up in an artificial environnient, all these events could make the earth a place no more livable and desert.
My paintings cover a litde more than 666 in 2 of the churchs walls.

On your left as you enter are the four horsemen cif the apocalypse pictured as four supersonic airplanes heralding the catastrophes impending in space and time.
A landscape in Which atomic missiles are ready to be launched, the great past ordeals : the ravaged towns, the large-scale genocides, the massacre of the Ar renian population by Talaat Pacha in 1915, Hitler and the Holocaust of the jews, lastly Stalin and Pol Pot.
In the background are figured the slaughter of the Vendean population and the destruction of the American Indians.
The central motive represents the "Great Whore" rising above this whole part : ravaged palaces, the remains of lost populations, Verdun etc.
Then comes the apse of the church and its lustful couples of unbridled morals.
Above A this chaos rises the "Virgid', a naked woman who, in her radiance, symbolizes the triumph of purity. Finally, the lovers appear, farming implements cover the earth and replace the guns and other destructive weapons. A tribute to Millet : Humanity reconstructs the world.

The central figure pictures a tree-shaped woman symbolizing the revival of the earth with its leaves, fruits and a vegetation in which nature blossoms out; birds make their appearance.
Mankind undertakes long voyages into space. Departure for unknown continents. This is the new world and the »Heavenly JerusaleW' ; embracing lovers who will rebuild the ravaged palaces. The vessels are waiting to get under sail to a dreamed Cytheria. At last humanity will find order, peace and quiet and a serenity where everything is reunited to the Baudelaire's "luxe, calme et volupté".
The triumph of the Lamb and Paradise on earth at last, with Adam and Eve! But paradise may be elsewhere in the cosmos.
After all these adventures on earth and so many ordeals, Humanity finally finds peace and happiness. Throughout the whole cycle of the human adventure the sky bas remained blue, serene and unaltered.
All this resdessness is of human origin and all this may only be a nightmare and a bad dream.

JEAN CARZOU

The Chapel "la Congrégation des Dames de la présentation de Notre Dame" of MANOSQUE was built between 1840 and 1845, and consecrated in 1848. Its façade lies to the North, its apse to the South.

The Chapel includes a single nave ending in a semi-circular apse. A semi-circled panelled vault adorned with cinquefoil overhangs the whole. A large bay under the dome leads to the apse, itself topped by a dome after the neoclassic tradition.

A frieze adorned with interlaced designs under an impressive projecting cornice runs all around the nave and crowns the pilasters sustaining the spring of the dome. The very graceful decoration of the capitals is remarkable. With an East-West layout, two appending rooms are shut out by wooden walls which were used to isolate nuns during the service.

THE apocalypse Of Carzou covers more than 670 m2 of the walls surrounding you. For the town of Manosque, this monumental work comes in addition to the adjoining House of Giono.

These joint achievements enable the town of Manosque to open a very important cultural space worth being visited. Nothing could have better fitted ourtime than painting the apocalypse and its physical, moral and intellectual confusions, a sign of a straying time which should not lead to a despair, but to the Heavenly Jerusalern and its promise of hope.

Indeed, our time is in need of legends that, like Noah's coat, cover the profusion of ideas and utopias generated by our time. This is surely what Malraux wanted us to understand with his phrase « the XXIst century will be spiritual or will not be at all», meaning a restoration of those values the loss of which spawned a XXth century eventuating in a kind of apocalypse, hopeless this time. From the paintings of Carzou emanates a particular atmosphere, not related ta any time or reality, somewhat surrealistic and baroque.

DOCTOR ANDRE NIEL