HERMANN

HERMANN ◊ THE TOWERS OF BOIS-MAURY William (T.7), Glénat 1991 Original plate no. 43. Patch in panel 2. Presence of traces of glue and superficial soiling on the spine. Signed. India ink on paper 36.4 × 47.3 cm (14.33 × 18.62 in.) What a sublime page from Les Tours de Bois-Maury! We're in the thick of battle, in Hungary, on our way to the Holy Land, in the middle of the fray, dodging blows, warding off death... This internalized violence in each of Hermann's works goes back a long way: "I was six-and-a-half years old when the Second World War came to an end. I know the smell of rotting bodies, the state of ruined houses," he once declared. This truly human violence, perpetrated in the name of God, is denounced right from the second panel: God himself looks on in dismay at this distressing spectacle... "If God exists," says Hermann, "I'm sure he'll be able to do it. If God exists," says Hermann, "how can he, from the height of his omnipotence, accept the violence committed in his name? I can't believe in a God of goodness, because it was He who imagined life, a life that requires eating to survive and killing to eat. There is an extreme violence in the very concept of life. I believe in the savagery of the cosmos. The reader is well served!