Travelling Through Time with Jean Sablé

Sitting here in the historic centre of Versailles, on rue Alexandre Bontemps, in a house with large floor-to-ceiling arched windows, you have the feeling that time has stopped and that you have been projected into another era. Looking through large marble columns you see a view of a pool with a small temple with white central columns. Beyond this temple you can see trees in a park . The sky is clear and calm. But no, this is not reality. At Jean Sable’s school of decorative painting, illusions are invented. We travel with Jean through the decades and celebrate the 20th anniversary of his school of decorative painting, the first in Versailles and unique in whole France.

17th Century in Versailles France

If you could travel back in time and meet Charles Le Brun in person, a court painter and a Decorator of several rooms of the Château de Versailles, would you both share a mutual respect? Are the techniques used by Charles le Brun at the time also taught in your school?

Jean Sablé: Charles le Brun was himself a precursor. His technique as a muralist resolutely turned it’s back on the fifteen centuries of fresco painting. Nowadays, the period is also “pivotal” because decorpainters also use binders that upset pictorial traditions. To answer your question, I would say that if Charles Le Brun and I could meet, we would agree that one must live with the times and not be afraid to explore new worlds. We would have a fruitful exchange on how glazes, chiaroscuro, atmospheric perspective and composition can make painting sing. Because although the mediums change, “feeling” is the essential, universal and timeless ingredient that the painter must never fail to mix with the colors of his palette.

As far as I know, at the time of Charles le Brun and Michelangelo there were no schools of decorative painting and most of the decorations were done by easel painters?

Jean Sablé: All the great masters of painting we know trained under other great masters. The knowledge was passed on in the workshops where the young applicant was apprenticed, sometimes at a very young age. During the Renaissance, painters painted indifferently on walls, panels or canvases without worrying about whether they were painters or decorators. The split came much later. Schools dedicated to decorative mural painting and trompe l’oeil, such as the one I created, did not yet exist. It was not until the middle of the 19th century, with the advent of the industrial era that this was done.

Lets go back to time travel and the Masters’ apprenticeship. I mentioned Le Brun but who were your favorites? Who are those from the past from whom you would have liked to learn and whom you admire?

Jean Sablé: As a muralist I have always been more impressed by Italian painters. Is Italy not the birthplace of the arts, where the masters of Flemish painting made the journey? I would say that the two virtuosos who opened my eyes were Tiepolo and Veronese. Both in the way they flooded their paintings with the warm southern light and orchestrated the colors in such a way that each element of the painting contributed to a perfectly and harmoniously composed whole.

I noticed that you always had your camera in your hand to photograph models, marble etc…

Jean Sablé: Yes, nature is my source of inspiration and I never fail to catch a detail that could enrich my repertoire. Moreover, as a painting teacher I have to constantly “feed” myself so that I can create, explore new horizons to share with my students.

Lorient Bretagne

Somehow fate led you here to Versailles but it seems that it was written in the stars because you and Louis XIV were born on the same day of the same month! What happened to this boy born in the 1960s in a town of fishermen and shipyards located 500 kilometers from Versailles? Where did this call to become a set painter come from? Do you remember that moment when you said to yourself “this is it, this is what I want to learn!” ?

Jean Sablé: I think I could devote a book to this question, but I will try to be concise. It is true that as a child I was always very attracted to monumental murals. There was something magical about them that fascinated me. How was it possible to transform simple plaster into a precious material like polished marble and to upset the perception of architectural volume through the play of perspective? That was all it took to arouse my curiosity! I have to say that architecture has always interested me too. Decorative mural painting allows me to have this exchange with volume. I have also often wondered where this attraction came from! Are we born artists? I think so and that art is innate in children. The revelation is made over time and on his ability to maintain a sense of wonder, amusement and curiosity about nature. From the moment I decided to embrace this vocation, I devoted myself to it entirely and patiently. Far from being discouraged by the magnitude of the task, masterpieces have always been additional reasons for me to be encouraged and persevere. So I have always walked my way from Lorient to Versailles with confidence, determination and without ever doubting my choice.

From the moment you chose a career as a decorative painter, did your family encourage you?

Jean Sablé: Even though parents are always worried at the beginning about what a career in the arts might look like for their child, they gave me the support and encouragement that allowed me to fulfil my dream.

Growing up, did you have any role models in art?

Jean Sablé: From an early age I had books on painting at my fingertips. All these masters contributed to my vocation. Some for their technique, others for their sensitivity. I think that a high level of sensitivity can largely compensate for some technical errors, which is not true in reverse. A painter like Sir Alma Tadema impressed me with his technique but never really touched me, whereas Eugène Delacroix is overwhelming.

1984 Belgium

What made you choose to learn at the Higher Institute of Painting in Brussels with the Flemish Master Clément VAN DER KELEN?

Jean Sablé: His name and the reputation of his painting school were very well known at that time. It is one of the great virtues of this “Northern School” to reconcile both technical rigour to control the durability of the works and the idealised restitution of the elements of nature. This approach applied to wall art was ideal for me.

– I know you are passionate about marble which have been used extensively in sculpture and architecture for centuries. But your interpretation of marble in your decoration goes far beyond simply copying the real marble. At your school you teach in your course that “copying” is not the main goal. Lend us your eyes for a moment and let us discover what it is about this cold material that has inspired you as an artist?

Jean Sablé: Marble was formed as a result of phenomenal seismic chaos. If you look closely at this material, you can see streams, waterfalls, oceans, valleys, mountains and forests, but also fossils, so that organized forms emerge from this moving chaos. This matter therefore contains within itself the apocalyptic imprint of the infinitely large and the genesis of the infinitely small. What an inspiration for an artist! I translate, not without malice I admit, this language of matter in my compositions, sometimes playing on the perplexity of the spectator to finally reveal a beauty that he thought was hidden. For me, achieving this is always like a game of chess that I am never sure I will win. As with calligraphy, it is all about the balance of the composition, the power and sincerity of the brushstroke, the rhythm of the full and empty spaces, and leaving it to the creative mind of the viewer to complete the work.

– Looking at your paintings “Marbre Coca” (Marble Coca -Cola), “Rigueur Débridée” (Unbridled Rigour) … I noticed in them the structure of marble. Does learning these techniques open up a wider creative field for the artist?

Jean Sablé : Yes, the mastery of composition to which I referred allows one to enter resolutely into the paths of contemporary creation. The marble graphics are stunning, unpredictable and seductive. The color palette is limitless, as are the skies. I let myself be carried away by this feisty material while trying to master it in my creations.

– Lets go back to the interior decorations made in the past. Does the reason why owners had trompe l’oeil marble painted in their interiors mean that they could not afford real marble?

Jean Sablé: No, absolutely not! France and Italy have the most beautiful marble quarries and yet in both countries there are many castles, palaces and cathedrals decorated with trompe l’oeil marble! The reason for this is that the decorative artist must always strive to idealize nature. In fact, the painter is not content with slavishly copying nature but rather observing the quintessence of the marble in order to extract the ultimate beauty and reproduce it in his works. Thus, trompe l’oeil painted marble will replace “real marble”, not to just replace it, not for reasons of economy, but to supplant it’s decorative qualities.

1999 - 2000 Paris France

15 years after graduating from the Higher Institute of Painting in Brussels, after a multitude of commissions, this guy from Bretagne, France born in Lorient, France was ready for the greatest challenge. Could you please tell us how this all started? You had acquired 15 years of practice and confidence to take this step?

Jean Sablé: As I said, the works of the great masters have always stimulated me and encouraged me to persevere. I wanted with all my strength to join them and to contribute with them to make the profession of decorative painter live in the ways of excellence. I had made the choice to dedicate my life to wall art and I never do things by halves. I wanted to reach this highest standard which led me to receive the highest title in the field of decorative arts from the French state. With all my being I felt that I was ready, that it was my time and that nothing could stop me. It was an exciting, unforgettable experience and I would even say an encounter with myself.

Could you please describe the rules of this competition. The panel format and the extent to which you were allowed to use your creative freedom? How long did this go on?

Jean Sablé: The standards are obviously very high and the slightest mistake or hesitation is punished. I had to go through several qualifying rounds before reaching the final. Several trompe l’oeil were to be created live and in record time in front of the jury. At the end of the qualifying rounds, only 3 candidates were selected from the 33 who started. I was then able to present my masterpiece to the jury and finally win the award. My work is 220 × 240 cm and represents architectural elements and materials in trompe l’oeil borrowed from 18th century France. A 1500 hour job. Although the composition was free, the specifications imposed: wood and marble in trompe l’oeil, as well as architectural ornaments – bas-relief, cornices, columns. Capitals – in grisaille and gold leaf, all in perfect stylistic, aesthetic and creative originality.

– 15 years after graduating from the Higher Institute of Painting in Brussels, after a multitude of commissions, this guy from Bretagne, France born in Lorient, France was ready for the greatest challenge. Could you please tell us how this all started? You had acquired 15 years of practice and confidence to take this step?

Jean Sablé: As I said, the works of the great masters have always stimulated me and encouraged me to persevere. I wanted with all my strength to join them and to contribute with them to make the profession of decorative painter live in the ways of excellence. I had made the choice to dedicate my life to wall art and I never do things by halves. I wanted to reach this highest standard which led me
to receive the highest title in the field of decorative arts from the French state. With all my being I felt that I was ready, that it was my time and that nothing could stop me. It was an exciting, unforgettable experience and I would even say an encounter with myself.

– Could you please describe the rules of this competition. The panel format and the extent to which you were allowed to use your creative freedom? How long did this go on?

2003 - 2023 Versailles France

Three years later you opened your own school and put on the white outfit with the tri-colour collar that you have worn for more than 20 years as a teacher at the Sablé school . Watching you teach, you don’t copy the subject, you become it whether it’s marble, trompe l’oeil, wood or ornament. The basics of craftsmanship begin with how to hold tools in the hand and how to move them across the surface of the canvas.

Jean Sablé: Yes, the way you hold a brush is really essential and greatly conditions the result you want to obtain. A paintbrush is never a body foreign to oneself that one would hold with one’s fingertips. It is an extension of one’s own soul, the revelation of the feeling that inhabits one at the moment of painting. But body posture is also very important. I often say that a brushstroke starts from the feet. You have to feel this deep and rooted anchorage of the feet in the ground to paint in a breath the marble fragments, the wood veins, the scrolls of an ornament, the branches bent by the wind and the clouds stretching in the breeze.

Have the tools of the decorative painter – brushes, pens, sponges – changed over the centuries…?

Jean Sablé: In principle, not really, with the possible exception of the two-wick brush that decorative painters have been using since the middle of the 19th century. Otherwise, flat and round brushes, short and long handles have always existed. What has changed is the quality of the synthetic fibres, which now have a flexibility and capillarity comparable to that of natural fibres.

-As all tools are the basis for learning different techniques, does your school provide a tool kit for each student?

Jean Sable: Yes, absolutely. It is important that the students have the same material as I do to feel confident. This is a service I offer my students in order to save them from making wrong purchases.

You were indicating that body posture is also very important. You often say that a brushstroke starts from the feet. Speaking of posture, decorative painting is rather physical work despite the light weight of the brushes. Michelangelo even wrote a poem about his suffering after he finished the Sistine Chapel

Jean Sablé: Yes, the early days of the job are quite grueling because you often have to adopt postures that you are not used to holding. Personally, at the beginning of my career, when I was only 25, I was immobilized for a week by sciatica. It never came back … my students are also sore in the first weeks of the course. This can be alleviated by practice and also by regular stretching.

2003 - 2023 Versailles

Three years later you opened your own school and put on the white outfit with the tri-colour collar that you have worn for more than 20 years as a teacher at the Sablé school. Watching you teach, you don’t copy the subject, you become it whether it’s marble, trompe l’oeil, wood or ornament. The basics of craftsmanship begin with how to hold tools in the hand and how to move them across the surface of the canvas.

Jean Sablé: Yes, the way you hold a brush is really essential and greatly conditions the result you want to obtain. A paintbrush is never a body foreign to oneself that one would hold with one’s fingertips. It is an extension of one’s own soul, the revelation of the feeling that inhabits one at the
moment of painting. But body posture is also very important. I often say that a brushstroke starts from the feet. You have to feel this deep and rooted anchorage of the feet in the ground to paint in a breath the marble fragments, the wood veins, the scrolls of an ornament, the branches bent by the wind and the clouds stretching in the breeze.

– Have the tools of the decorative painter – brushes, pens, sponges – changed over the centuries…?

Jean Sablé : In principle, not really, with the possible exception of the two-wick brush that decorative painters have been using since the middle of the 19th century. Otherwise, flat and round brushes,
short and long handles have always existed. What has changed is the quality of the synthetic fibres, which now have a flexibility and capillarity comparable to that of natural fibres.

As all tools are the basis for learning different techniques, does your school provide a tool kit for each student?

Jean Sable : Yes, absolutely. It is important that the students have the same material as I do to feel confident. This is a service I offer my students in order to save them from making wrong purchases.

– You were indicating that body posture is also very important. You often say that a brushstroke starts from the feet. Speaking of posture, decorative painting is rather physical work despite the light
weight of the brushes. Michelangelo even wrote a poem about his suffering after he finished the Sistine Chapel.

Jean Sablé : Yes, the early days of the job are quite grueling because you often have to adopt postures that you are not used to holding. Personally, at the beginning of my career, when I was only 25, I was immobilized for a week by sciatica. It never came back … my students are also sore in the first weeks of the course. This can be alleviated by practice and also by regular stretching.

– 2010 you founded a graduate association at your school. Membership is also open to decor- painting enthusiasts. What do you offer to members of this association?

Jean Sablé: I founded this association in 2007. Originally, I wanted to create a non-profit organization to organize “the Salon” in Versailles, this international event which brings together every year “the cream of the crop” of decorative painters from all over the world. Later on, the idea of keeping this structure to organize other events was born. Its aim is to bring together old and new students, but also all those who are passionate about trompe l’oeil and decorative painting. We organize visits to important places in our historical heritage, conferences and an annual trip.

– I think it is important that your students are not left behind after their certification and that they have the chance to be part of your community. I know that it is very important to you that your students are able to reveal themselves and gain confidence through commissions. I also know that some of your former students assist you in the life of the school and the association?

Jean Sablé: Yes, the relationship I create with my students is deep. I continue to follow them as their careers evolve and many years after they leave the school, many of them return regularly to relive the atmosphere of their studies. I am very concerned about the continuity of these links, and as I am concerned about their future and their prosperity, I regularly give them projects. Some of them have also assisted me on prestigious sites such as the Gangi Palace in Palermo, others help me with great dedication to keep the school’s student association alive.

2010 was also the year in which you had a 223-page book “Décor-peints et trompe-l’oeil” (Decorative painting and trompe l’oeil) published. What made you want to write this book?

Jean Sablé: My vocation as a teacher has revealed in me the values of sharing. I like the Indian proverb “what is not given is lost”. This is the feeling I got from every line of this book, which all readers describe as “generous”. This is the best compliment I can receive, because I have achieved
my goal of being useful. I also realized how close painting and writing are. One looks for a word to express one’s feeling in ink as one looks for a colour to perfect one’s painting. When I paint, I write. When I write, I paint.

– Your school specializes in teaching trompe l’oeil techniques. What stimulates you in the art of trompe l’oeil?

Jean Sablé: The techniques I teach are designed to allow each person to reveal the talent that lies dormant within them. I do this without dogmatism but with the aim of demystifying the techniques and opening up the paths to mastery. The trompe-l’oeil is a game that mischievously plays with perceptions. Denis Diderot (1713- 1784) said about trompe-l’oeil: “the hand touched a flat surface, and the eye, always seduced, saw a relief so that one could have asked the philosopher which of the two senses whose testimony contradicted each other was a liar”. It is this magic that fascinates me and that leads me to create settings where the spectator is transported.

-Your school has a very flexible program. Along with the certified study program you offer short courses to all those who want to improve their knowledge.

Jean Sablé: Indeed, the school often welcomes, in addition to the students who are candidates for the diploma, other students or professionals who come to deepen or improve their knowledge in areas they consider important for the development of their career as a decorative painter.

– April is certification month for your students and they must be able to demonstrate their mastery and knowledge. Could you please describe the exam day for us? What do you expect of them after they have studied 900 hours for six months in your school?

Jean Sablé: Indeed, every year at the beginning of April, the students who take part in the certification process must submit their final work to a jury of professionals. It is usually 200×120 cm, portrait or landscape. This presentation work must respond to a very precise theme and reveal the mastery of the techniques taught at the school. To support their master’s work, students must also submit a thesis of their work to the jury. The diploma awarded by the Sablé School is at Bac + 2 level and is recognized in all European countries.

-As your school is also open to foreign students and they can follow your courses in English, do you have any statistics on the previous 20 years as to the countries of origin of the people who come to study at the Sablé school?

Jean Sablé: The vast majority of foreign students come from the United States. Secondly, there are students from other European countries. Sweden, Italy, Spain. I also welcomed a student from New Zealand and another from Japan.

– Now that the reader has the desire and the interest to improve his artistic skills and become a Sablé School qualified decorative painter, how should he go about it?

Jean Sablé: The registration procedure is quite simple. Just contact me directly to make an appointment at the school. I attach great importance to this first meeting because I always want to make sure that the work I propose meets the candidate’s expectations. Of course, I also want to discuss his motives. Indeed, this training is demanding because it prepares people to evolve in a professional world that is itself very demanding. My position is to be precise about the realities of the job, but also to be benevolent in order to allow each person to reveal themselves and develop.

We have travelled through history and decades. And, as history has shown, destruction has always been accompanied by the need for those who know to restore, rebuild and create beauty around them. How do you yourself understand this need and the sustainability of your own
business in today’s fast changing society. Why are you doing this, Jean?

Jean Sablé: First of all, I think that the practice of the arts is as vital to the human being as the air we breathe. In totalitarian countries where art has been censored or banned, chaos has ensued. I have been living this passion for 35 years without being bored for a single second because I learn every day. Our age is frantic and ultimately makes us chase a time that always eludes us. To observe, create and interpret the spectacle of nature is to stop time. This is also what my students find in my school. I became a teacher by a happy combination of circumstances and I realized how useful, exciting and indispensable it was to put the gold you had received in your own hands into other hands. I have always considered myself a custodian of this beautiful profession, never an owner. The roots of the decorative painting profession go back to the dawn of time. I therefore believe I am doing a useful job in passing on this art to future generations without ever giving up on bringing it to life in our time.

-Mural paintings as messages delivered. Since the earliest times, humans have always felt the need to leave the imprint of their history, their thoughts and their existence on walls. From the biblical scenes of the Middle Ages to the social protests of our time, can a mural reflect the era we live in?

Jean Sablé : From the Lascaux caves to the Sistine Chapel, from the Valley of the Kings to the Palace of Versailles, wall paintings are present everywhere and in all civilizations. This art is in constant relation with architecture and its time and was, before writing, music and sculpture, one of the first forms of artistic expression. This universal mode of expression has narrated the daily lives of people, glorified monarchs, magnified architecture, deified our places of worship and sometimes even denounced injustice, tyrants and dictatorships. I am thinking in particular of the murals that were painted on the Berlin Wall or those in the ghettos denouncing racism and segregation.

– The wealth of a country is not only based on its cultural treasure but also on the durability of the know-how of its craftsmen. What could be done differently so that schools like yours don’t close their doors. As a public school headmaster, do you have any suggestions or recommendations?

Jean Sablé: Victor Hugo said “a school that opens is a prison that closes”. Diversity is the wealth of acountry. Initiatives that tend to emancipate people from ignorance should therefore be encouraged. I created the very first school of decorative painting in Versailles. There had never been one before. Founding this school has been an adventure that will celebrate its 20th anniversary in a few days! I think that to last over time, a school must be embodied by its founder. This is what I am dedicated to: giving my school a unique and singular identity. This implies a total investment on my part, I would dare to say a priesthood! Such schools hardly exist any more and yet they are the guardians of ancestral know-how. I believe that it is the role of our policies to identify and support private initiative schools by protecting them from regulations and standards that do not apply to them in any way.

Main national and international residential projects:

Paris, Versailles, Bordeaux, Monaco, Bruxelles, Montréal, New York, Long Island, Washington, Baltimore, Los Angeles, Long Beach, San Francisco, Oman, Palermo

Exhibitions:

Alexandria 1998, Norrkoping 1999, Londres 2000, Paris 2001, San Antonio 2002, Bruges 2003,Oslo 2004, Philadelphie 2005, Utrecht 2006, Aarhus 2007, Dallas 2007, Dubaï 2007, Chicago 2008. Atlantic City 2008, Dubaï 2008, Bergamo 2009. Abu Dhabi 2009, Versailles 2009, Paris 2009, Versailles 2010, Portland 2010. Orlando 2010, Atlanta 2011, Hampton 2011, Hambourg 2012, Tokyo 2013, Seattle 2014, Lecce 2015, Saint-Pétersbourg 2016, New-York 2017, Leewarden 2018. Paris 2016 -2023