"Transgression" : One should dare use that beautiful French word and restore its nobility, for that word, has been limited to its disparaging sense of violation of a rule, of a command, by our Christian culture, thus being synonymous with fault and sin. Therefore does one appreciate the opening gap, that of the modern use of that word in the field of geology that brings to a second life its rich original, etymological sense : “the spreading of the sea over land as evidenced by the deposition of marine strata over terrestrial strata” for instance after land sinking. It has to be acknowledged still, that boldness in art is always transgressive, as is so often progress in modern research : hypotheses and methods undo established stands and substitute to them …
    I like the image of the sea tiding up to the point of overflowing and invading weakened shores, collapsed waterside regions, places where the continent of norms and rules gives in instead of holding … I like Bazaine’s words upon admiring Bonnard’s strokes of boldness and quoting Braque’s zen ideal about understanding that truth is not it, but to it, and that “moving towards” is where the artist’s truth lies, as well as his luck; it is all about the artist who will not be satisfied with easy pieces of truth, established ones … and who tries to “push a bit further than what is usually given for truth … and a bit deeper”; his genuine strength lies in the beyond-it; it is all about the artist at a loss who, like Bonnard, may confess : “I just begin to understand, I should start all over again”. As expressed in these words about Gian Lorenzo Bernini : “Genius is transgressive. Though it invents its own laws, it aims only at stepping further, at being stopped by no bounds, at attesting a creative power that could not be slowed or interrupted by any human weakness whatsoever…”
    Norms and rules, “single ways”; tracks would be beaten without end, were they not diverted and diversified by those who take the risk of straying away from them. Pro-gress, trans-gress : while progress is but an onward movement, transgression –and her alone- brings transcendence alongside the boldness of overriding, of reaching the other bank, getting across and leaving behind …; the antonym of which is “re-gression”. Think of Bernini’s disgrace at the end of his life : his boldness, as baroque had come to mean bad taste, could not be assimilated by triumphant neo-classicism. Would there still be life without such sea-floor spreading and human breaking out of bonds ?
(Translated by Michèle Bustros)