Review by Win Wiacek
Well over a decade ago the prestigious Louvre gallery in Paris began an intriguing, extremely rewarding collaboration with the world of comics, resulting in wealth of modern art treasures – translated bande dessinée made available to English readers courtesy of those fine folks at NBM.
The Sky Over the Louvre is a lush and beautiful, oversized hardback graphic novel exploring the origins and philosophical underpinnings of France’s national art collection. Yet it simultaneously peels back the motivations and ambitions of the twisted visionaries who steered – or maybe simply rode – the human wave of Chaos deemed “the Terror” of the French Revolution: the catalyst for the gallery’s very existence. It presents the Louvre not as a stuffy edifice of public culture, but rather as an intense, informative, insightful and gripping glimpse into the price and power of art as engine of change and agent of obsession.
Writer Jean-Claude Carrière’s achievements are worth researching online, perhaps most influential as one of France’s greatest screenwriters and a double Oscar winner. He assisted Jacques Tati and wrote the novelisations of his films, before going on to work with Luis Buñuel (for 19 years), scripting such classics as Diary of a Chambermaid, Belle de Jour, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, That Obscure Object of Desire and many more.
Belgian born Bernard Yslaire was one of the first creators to fully embrace the potential of the internet with his online strip Mémoires du XXe ciel and since this book has largely left comics to concentrate on digital projects.
The Sky Over the Louvre compellingly dramatises history. It focusses on revolutionary artist Jacques-Louis David and close associate Maximilien de Robespierre (who dubbed himself “The Incorruptible”) as they plan how to replace religion, monarchy and the Old Art with something unique and truly worthy of their revolution. David and his School (Drouais, Greueze, Girodet and students Serangeli and Gérard) have taken residence in the old Louvre Palace, where past kings left their grandiose aggregation of treasures when they vacated Paris for Versailles. Here the Revolutionary council aspires to create a new aesthetic and new thought for their New Society.
Jules Stern is a 13-year-old wanderer from the Black Sea, roaming Paris’ dangerous streets in search of his mother, and claiming to have an appointment with David. On the 15th Fructidor, Year 1 (8th August 1793 for those of us not wedded to the Republic’s new calendar) the angelic lad confronts the artist just as he is inaugurating the Louvre as the first Museum of the Nation: dedicated to public ownership of art and the notion of beauty as a revolutionary ideal. Later, they meet again and Robespierre forms a hostile opinion of the child, although David is clearly fascinated by the headstrong, beautiful boy.
Blood, betrayal and horror rule the streets as David, from his apartments in the Louvre, begins work on a brace of pivotal works: The Supreme Being and The Death of Joseph Bara. It is difficult to assess which causes him the most grief and triggers his ultimate downfall…
Set solidly in the very heart of a moment of epochal historical importance, this is a stunning, utterly compelling tale of humanity at its wildest extremes, when grand ideals wedded themselves to the basest on bestial impulses. From that Yslaire and Carrière have crafted a magnificently realised tale laced with staggering detail and addictive emotion.
With extra features including biographies and a listing of the actual artworks woven seamlessly into the narrative, this is a truly magical book no aficionado of the medium, lover of history or student of human nature should miss.
