Liberté, a tapestry woven in 1978, based on a cartoon by Fernand Léger (from 1953), inspired by a poem by Paul Éluard (written in 1941)
Donated by France in 1984
With:
Catherine Lalumière, former Secretary General of the Council of Europe (1989-1994)
Pap Ndiaye, Ambassador, Permanent Representative of France to the Council of Europe
Sylvie Gonzalez, honorary chief heritage curator at the Paul Éluard Art and History Museum of Saint Denis
Sound archives: Paul Éluard and Pierre Seghers
Authors: Charlotte Roux, Antoine Auger, Anne Kropotkine
To find out more:
Paul Éluard, Fernand Léger, Liberté, j’écris ton nom, Seghers, 1953, re-edited 2016
Sylvie Gonzalez, Martine Créac’h, Anne Yanover, Anne Dopffer, Diana Gay, Nelly Maillard, Autour du poème Liberté. Paul Éluard et Fernand Léger en dialogue, édition Musée d’art et d’histoire - Saint-Denis / PSD, 2017
Transcription
Opening titles: L'Atelier de l'Europe, discovering the Council of Europe’s art collection.
Liberty, tapestry by Fernand Léger after a poem by Paul Éluard, donated by France in 1978. With Catherine Lalumière, Pap Ndiaye, Sylvie Gonzalez and, from the sound archives, the voices of Paul Éluard and Pierre Seghers.
Catherine Lalumière: There are several works that revolve around democracy, human rights and humanist values. The one that touches me most is the tapestry by Fernand Léger based on Paul Éluard’s poem, Liberty. I’ve always been fascinated by this poem, which is magnificent. And liberty is the quintessential fundamental value.
Sound archive - Paul Éluard: "On my school notebooks, on my desk and on the trees, on the sands, on the snow, I write your name".
Pap Ndiaye: And of course when we read it, the first thing that comes to mind is the French Resistance.
Sound archive - Paul Éluard: I wrote Liberty in the summer of 1941. When I started it, the idea was that the name coming at the end of the poem would be the name of the woman I loved.
Sound archive - Paul Seghers: The first three or four, maybe five, verses, were a love poem to his wife. “On my school notebooks … I write your name” – that name was Nusch.
Sound archive - Paul Éluard: But I quickly realised that this name was giving free rein to my desire for freedom, for liberation. It personified it.
Sound archive - Paul Seghers: He understood that it wasn’t Nusch, that in fact Nusch was for him the embodiment of a free woman and freedom. So he changed things around and wrote "Liberty".
Sound archive - Paul Éluard: "And through the power of a word, I begin my life over. I was born to know you, to name you, Liberty".
Pap Ndiaye: This underlying ambiguity, the merging of a loved one and of liberty as a vital principle makes this a deeply touching poem.
Sound archive - Paul Éluard: The poem was printed the following winter in England and air-dropped across France by the RAF.
Pap Ndiaye: The poem was printed in tens of thousands of copies; and that says a lot about the power of a poem and how it could serve as an intellectual weapon against the occupation of France. I noticed the tapestry as soon as I arrived at the Palais de l'Europe. It’s huge and you can’t miss it. It sort of beckons you over to read and decipher the poem. And there’s this very uplifting aspect to the text even though, at the beginning of the 1950s, when Fernand Léger illustrated the poem at the request of Pierre Seghers, it wasn’t a particularly uplifting time.
Sylvie Gonzalez: Pierre Seghers was a publisher, and a member of the French Resistance. It was Seghers who, in 1953, after Éluard’s death, asked Fernand Léger to illustrate the poem Liberty. And Fernand Léger put together a 3D book that folded like an accordion. That 3D book was so successful that he was then commissioned to weave the tapestry, of which only a few copies were made.
Pap Ndiaye: The first thing that struck me was Fernand Léger’s illustrations and the really bright colours.
Sylvie Gonzalez: With fairly basic solid colours: primaries and secondaries of blue, yellow, green, red and orange, with Paul Éluard’s portrait by Fernand Léger on the left.
Pap Ndiaye: It’s the drawing of the face with the hands that I find touching. A face that’s pensive, sad but at the same time determined. And then, of course the great freedom Fernand Léger uses in his illustrative work, the way the colours leach into the shouted words and flow between the verses.
Sylvie Gonzalez: Fernand Léger’s colours swirl into Paul Éluard’s writing to surround the verses and underline the words as if he’s giving his own personal take on the poem.
Pap Ndiaye: And then the word ‘Liberté’ on the right, that looks like it’s been written on a chalkboard, almost childishly.
Sylvie Gonzalez: The word "Liberté" taking off at the end with a little arabesque motif or signature to underline it.
Pap Ndiaye: Here, liberty is expressed in artistic freedom, the artist’s ability to turn a poem into a complete work of art. The tapestry is very well installed and shown off at its best, at the top of the stairs leading to the Committee of Ministers meeting room, the huge circular chamber where the ambassadors meet each week. And also close to the 46 countries represented at the Council of Europe. So it is located at the very heart of the organisation which itself was built on the ruins of Europe in 1949. The poem and its illustration and the creation of the Council of Europe are contemporaneous and are all part of the same forward movement.
Closing credits: That was Liberty, a tapestry by Fernand Léger after a poem by Paul Éluard, a Council of Europe podcast, created by Charlotte Roux, Antoine Auger and Anne Kropotkine. With former Secretary General of the Council of Europe Catherine Lalumière, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of France to the Council of Europe Pap Ndiaye, Honorary head curator of the Paul Éluard Museum of art and history in Saint-Denis Sylvie Gonzalez, and, from the sound archives, the voices of Paul Éluard and Pierre Seghers. Other episodes are available on the Council of Europe website.
