GABRIELLE VINCENT

GABRIELLE VINCENT ERNEST AND CELESTINE Ernest est malade, Éditions Duculot 1987 Le Réveil, original illustration. Watercolor and gouache 23.6 × 17.6 cm (9.29 × 6.93 in.) Siméon is well-behaved under his blanket: Célestine has taken good care of him, as a prelude to the day ahead. But while she's excited about the day ahead, she's nagged by a question: why hasn't Ernest come to wake her up? It's too early for the chaos of Celestine's disorder to have set in, but it's ready to emerge, like those drawers ready to release all their contents and the lamp that follows the same dangerous inclination. If we are to understand Gabrielle Vincent's art, disorder is fundamental, as it carries energy and meaning. It presides over her vision of what she wants to transmit to children (and to any adults who might read it with or without them) via Ernest et Célestine. She wrote in her Carnets intimes in 1994 about an article listing Ernest et Célestine: "Joie d'avoir retrouvé l'article Éloge du désordre. To be sent to all my friends.