Ever since I discovered this photograph a few months ago, everything about this figure standing in the church of Saint-Sulpice has puzzled me:
the sun-glasses she wears indoors – a possible Italian idiosyncrasy – hardly compatible with the faithful perception of color and light required for taking a picture;
her béret she’d have bought on a Montmartre stroll – a French note;
the Nike sneakers, unstylish and mundane, at odds with her paraphernalia, each detail chosen with care, connected to some private history;
which draws my attention to the little Hello Kitty-like figurine, just above her waist-bag. Zooming in on it, I can figure out a character, or a two-legged animal, in pop-art style. Undoubtedly some whimsical touch on her part;
the bag itself is just large enough to hold the phone she’s using to photograph a stained-glass window which, being familiar with the architecture of the church, I know to be above her, to the left - out of frame.
My gaze wanders over the intriguing figure and other silvery details: her earrings, the three dots on the arm of her glasses (costume stones, may be), and her two cuff-links,
then moves down to the naïve figurine,
to settle on the clasp of her bag.
A carefully devised visual itinerary conjuring up the refinement of Proust’s aristocratic characters, inhabiting that same quarter of Saint Germain des Prés, a century ago. Every detail of her attire is the result of an elaborate selection governed by intimate, subjective criteria, at odds with my own, although shaped, just like mine, by class, society, country, travels and personal history.
Only then do I notice, behind her, a Christ on a wooden cross, its sobriety set against the over-ornamented nave and choir, burdened by the successive construction waves layering up since the seventeenth century.
After this fitful trajectory, my gaze at last settles to take in the person as a whole. I perceive her differently, no longer a multifarious piling up of clothing details behind which she’d disappear, but a decorous figure of black and dark grays – a miracle of harmony created by black-and-white photography. I cannot imagine her multicolored, flashy, outrageously conspicuous.
I move closer to her, drawn, too, by the light passing through a stained glass window.
She is focused, taking the picture.
I sit on the same chair as Jacques catching her pose. I stay still for a long while.
She moves out of frame.
I stand up, turn towards the organ loft above the porch, a gigantic Cavaillé-Coll. I step outside, dazzled by the sun-light and the hustle and bustle of the square, where the stalls for the annual Marché de la Poésie are being set up.
