Raphaël Prenovec
BackPommes de la discorde (Apples of Discord)
The idea to create these twelve paintings on the theme of lies came to me from my interest in Greek mythology. I remember this passage where Heracles (Hercules) delivers Prometheus (son of Zeus) from the rock of the Caucasus on which he was condemned to be chained for eternity. In exchange for this deliverance, Prometheus tells him how to obtain the golden apples that he was ordered to pick in the garden of the Hesperides (nieces of the latter and daughters of his brother the Titan Atlas). Let1
The idea to create these twelve paintings on the theme of lies came to me from my interest in Greek mythology.
I remember this passage where Heracles (Hercules) delivers Prometheus (son of Zeus) from the rock of the Caucasus on which he was condemned to be chained for eternity. In exchange for this deliverance, Prometheus tells him how to obtain the golden apples that he was ordered to pick in the garden of the Hesperides (nieces of the latter and daughters of his brother the Titan Atlas). Let us remember that stealing these golden apples was one of the twelve labors of Heracles. Only Prometheus could know how to go about it : by cunning and lies. And if I skip over the details of this legend that everyone knows more or less well, it is to better concentrate on the theme that is linked to this emblematic fruit that is the apple.
Very quickly I appropriated this story, with the idea that the apple was always associated with a symbolically sacred or evil power as in Greek mythology, in the Bible, in the Celtic world, in fiction (Agatha Christie), in cinema (The World of Narnia) or in comics or even in manga. The garden of the Hesperides became my pictorial space with my creations as guardians, both protectors and guarantors of my evolution. Thus, this series of "Apples of Discord" symbolizes my relationship to art and my creations. And if the figure of Prometheus symbolizes the figure of the artist, a being who is both conqueror and victim of his excess, a figure which undeniably recalls that of Christ and his sacrificial dimension, the figure of Heracles symbolizes that of art and the artifice necessary for the accomplishment of a work.
Simultaneously symbols of immortality, wisdom, and power, the "apples of discord" are part of a conflicting, permanent, and inevitable tension at the heart of artistic creation between the artist and his art. "Art is difficult," said Philippe Néricault Destouches. It is precisely this difficult necessity that I wanted to represent in this work.
I remember this passage where Heracles (Hercules) delivers Prometheus (son of Zeus) from the rock of the Caucasus on which he was condemned to be chained for eternity. In exchange for this deliverance, Prometheus tells him how to obtain the golden apples that he was ordered to pick in the garden of the Hesperides (nieces of the latter and daughters of his brother the Titan Atlas). Let us remember that stealing these golden apples was one of the twelve labors of Heracles. Only Prometheus could know how to go about it : by cunning and lies. And if I skip over the details of this legend that everyone knows more or less well, it is to better concentrate on the theme that is linked to this emblematic fruit that is the apple.
Very quickly I appropriated this story, with the idea that the apple was always associated with a symbolically sacred or evil power as in Greek mythology, in the Bible, in the Celtic world, in fiction (Agatha Christie), in cinema (The World of Narnia) or in comics or even in manga. The garden of the Hesperides became my pictorial space with my creations as guardians, both protectors and guarantors of my evolution. Thus, this series of "Apples of Discord" symbolizes my relationship to art and my creations. And if the figure of Prometheus symbolizes the figure of the artist, a being who is both conqueror and victim of his excess, a figure which undeniably recalls that of Christ and his sacrificial dimension, the figure of Heracles symbolizes that of art and the artifice necessary for the accomplishment of a work.
Simultaneously symbols of immortality, wisdom, and power, the "apples of discord" are part of a conflicting, permanent, and inevitable tension at the heart of artistic creation between the artist and his art. "Art is difficult," said Philippe Néricault Destouches. It is precisely this difficult necessity that I wanted to represent in this work.
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