The Autumn Salon is, at the same time, one of audacity and loyalty. The definition was given during the opening. It can be interpreted in various ways. The most benevolent, no doubt, is to enclose audacity in attempts which, in relation to a certain context, sometimes seem to mark time. As for fidelity, it has had varying fortunes if we consider the erring ways of recent periods; all the more reason, moreover, to welcome it through a return to the sources, when the protesters, if not always the innovators, had not yet deserted this Salon of heroic times.
Thanks be to the president André Mure, for this audacity and for this loyalty. Without a doubt, the sympathetic side of this event lies in its exuberance, which is accentuated each year.
One would be tempted to hang this warning on the door: "Profane people should abstain" as one might fear that a heteroclism, bringing the best and the worst, would discourage the uninitiated, even if they were of good will.
The strongest will go without fear to the end of this composite harvest, from which it will remain to share the good grain of the chaff.
In short, the visitor will not be bored. This is a result that cannot be promised anywhere else.
The school of Nice, of hoax memory, has given way to other young people whose prudent sign is to be appreciated: "For a school (?) of Tours". Note that the question mark is not ours...
Raymonde Gimelle was subjected to the "full glare" of the 1969 exhibition. We will have to say what she owes to this formidable test.
Finally, loyalty is manifested in its purest form in a room entirely devoted to Alphonse Rodet, whose jubilee it is in these walls. More than a painter of Lyon, a painter from Lyon. That is already a lot.
Catalogue in hand, we will come back to these first impressions.
(Palais des Expositions, quai de Bondy, until 11 November. Every day, from 2 to 10 pm. Saturdays and Sundays, from 10 am to noon and from 2 to 7 pm).
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