miquel-barcelo_xavier-forcioli.jpg

Leading international artist, Miquel Barceló, creates paintings, sculptures, and ceramics. The decoration of the dome in the conference room at the Palais des Nations in Geneva, which is his work, is directly inspired by the underground space. He worked particularly on the theme of felines from the Chauvet cave, as evidenced by the drawings and watercolours in the collection published with text by John Berger.

"The technique is extraordinary. Like all great techniques, like Michelangelo or Picasso, it is at once very simple and very refined. The artist of the Chauvet cave worked with charcoal, and prepared their wall, their giornata, like a fresco painter. They found the ochre and red colours in their surroundings. They scratched the outside of the figure to emphasise it, as Tintoretto would do. The Chauvet painter did the groundwork, prepared their black, prepared their wall…"

"It's an artist's workshop where the artist has just left. Behind the paintings, you see scratches: these are the claw marks of cave bears. You might even say that the first artists were the cave bears. It was the cave bears who inspired the artists".