Jean Tyboud.
Untitled. date unknown.
Etching.
This engraving was hanging in my grandparents’ house. It was kept in a square passageway that was arranged like a sitting room -carpets, armchairs, desk and lamps- giving way to my grandparents’ bedroom and where the phone was. This was my favorite room to play in: a bit secluded from the rooms where the action took place -the dining room, living room and of course the kitchen- though close enough to feel the warmth of the people around and not feel too isolated.
I started observing this work very early on, it puzzled me….For many years, during these holidays spent beside my beloved grandmother Denise, I would interrogate this image, try to decipher it…I could not figure out what it represented and kept looking, searching, summer after summer…Was it a tree? A landscape? A limb? A flower? Did it even represent anything at all?
And then one day, I was about ten years old, I had my epiphany: acute joy and... embarrassment (that I could not figure it out earlier, now of course it seemed so clear).
When my grandmother passed away, this is the only artwork I wanted to keep and it now sits in my bedroom. My first esthetic emotion is tied to this quest and in a way, this is what I am still doing: looking...searching...longing for epiphanies...
Anne Couillaud