Arts & Feu - Association Robert Barriot

Robert Barriot

Robert Barriot

The first exhibitions of Robert Barriot’s works, in the first half of the 20th century, sent art critics back to their reference books.

The most persevering among them found traces of enamels on embossed copper in Ancient Persian art, in China during the Ming Dynasty period and in France up until the 16th century. Since then, nothing.

To retrace the steps that led Barriot to revive techniques that were thought to have disappeared altogether, one must plunge into his personal life’s story.

Barriot’s life is worth a novel, however here,
we will try to explain simply the essence of the man and his work.

Son of a tax collector and a native of Berry (a region in the centre of France), his first interest is music. At 17, he moves to Paris, where he attends "les Beaux-Arts" (the French School of Fine Arts). He self-finances his studies by doing a number of odd-jobs, including busking with his violin on the cobblestones of Montmartre. There, he will make the first decisive encounter of his life in the form of the sculptor Jean Baffier, who befriends the young Barriot. Baffier will give him one single, but important piece of advice: "Art is not to be learned in schools. All research is personal".

Barriot will follow this advice to the letter. He quickly leaves "les Beaux-Arts" and begins a long quest. He will go on to practise in all 22 fields of art, including set and costumes design in the theatre, embroidery, stoneware, pottery, ceramics and earthenware, etc. Thanks to his great curiosity he discovers the enamelling through the works of Carriés, the last of France’s great 19th century enamellers. Four years will be necessary in order to reinvent the ancestral technique of the medieval enamellers. Four long years of trial and error in chemistry and oxidation, subjects on which he knows nothing, for the long lost colours of the blue and red coppers to reappear. His works rapidly build a small reputation in the city of Paris where, in the early days of the century, one could meet some interesting people.

Church Ste Odile's
reredos (Paris)

Jehanne d'Arc, Pasquerel et La Hire
1,99m x 1,15m

A character by the name of Pierre Lermite, a priest at St. Odile’s Church, is interested in Barriot’s creations and commissions a reredos for his church. At this point, it is worth noting that the first pieces by Barriot are of impressive proportions compared to known pieces at the time, but they are nothing more than a precise assembly of several monochrome sheets.

The "Vierge de Déols" (Virgin of Déols - 2.37m x 1.10m), or "Jehanne d’Arc, Pasquerel et La Hire" (1.99m x 1.15m), with hieratic and resolutely frontal characters, are faithful to medieval representations. Their bright colours are crude and paradoxically frozen for figures born from flames. But no matter how wonderful they are, relief and depth are still missing. But Pierre Lermite’s commission will be a turning point in the evolution of Barriot’s art. For the first time, he sets to work on large single copper sheets.

In order to do this, he first has to return to sheet metal working and the nearly forgotten profession of "dinandier" (copper sheet-beating). Every sheet of metal has to be embossed, i.e. sculpted from behind with a chisel and blowtorch so that the motif can appear in relief. A work of infinite patience and precision, a slow caress, repeated again and again for the line to become shape, for the round, harmonious curves to be created. Under Barriot’s fingers, metal takes on a human form.

Has he said himself, "an artist willing to express himself in direct carving, metal engraving, pottery, enamelling or indeed any branch of art, must start at the beginning and become a simple worker and then master-craftsman". This concept of "Loyal Travail" inherited from the "companions" of the middle ages, will take him one step further. Like them, he will live on the very spot where his work is and will dedicate himself fully to it.s

Despite the pious indignation of the congregation, Barriot, his wife and children, move into the bell tower of St. Odile’s Church. By night, he devotes himself to strange and mysterious promethean experiments. Enamelling is a science of fire and Barriot has to learn how to tame it.
Since large enamels ovens are impossible to find, he will design, with the help of the architect Druelle, a giant oven 3.5m deep which will light up the crypt’s walls with a fiery glow. For his first attempt, he makes a copper enamel depicting the archangel St. Michael (1.97m x 0.84m); however, at the first firing, the oven explodes but the archangel survives, and, to this day, bears the traces of the debacle on his wings. Barriot, however, is not a man to be discouraged by technical difficulties so, as he did all his life, he gets back to work on his mastery of high temperature firing.
The enamelling technique he has reinvented is far from simple. It consists of applying a first layer of translucent enamel on the embossed copper which will be fired at 900ºC for ten minutes. A second enamelling, whose function is to reinforce the colours, is then followed by another firing. In the beginning, the range of 5 or 6 colours is opaque and thick as gouache, but by copper oxidation, the fire will give nuances to these shades.

Placing the enamel
in the oven

Checking the firing

Barriot will only master the immense complexity of this crazy alchemy through endless trials and patience. But his passion pushes him still further into technique and development. In effect, he must continue to refine his copper-
embossing technique, notably the angles of the lines of engraving, in order to transform the reflections achieved by the copper. Finally, he corrects hues by a succession of shorter firings the length of which is judged by the master’s eye, through the glass of the oven.
This technique, finally mastered, will allow Barriot to complete his most monumental work. The commissioned reredos of St. Odile’s Church incorporates seven sheets. There are 24 old men playing the harp, drinking from the sacrificial cup, representing St. John’s vision of the apocalypse. The dimensions of the sheets are incredible: each almost a metre wide and 3.20m in height.

Cooling of the enamel after firing

Never to this day, have such enamels been seen