In Search of a Lost Space: Le Grand Espace by Yves Bonnefoy or the Art of Recovering Places of Memory

Abstract

While remaining a brief piece of prose composed of some annotations and imaginary wanderings in the Louvre museum, Le Grand Espace by Yves Bonnefoy allows us to capture the essence of a space that is shaped progressively as a place of the soul in its own here and now.
The poetic emotion and the dreamlike dimension intertwine in this imaginary journey to the discovery of Delacroix, Manet, Cezanne, etc. in a way that does not follow any predetermined plan, if not the flow of memory and meditation. As the objective of a movie camera, Bonnefoy’s glance can capture all the fragments of beauty and brightness of art and melt them with the details of his own existence which are lost in the dust of time. Hence a unitary vision and a renewed consciousness of the world.