IN
TOUCH WITH THE LIVING WORLD
I first saw Nora Douady’s work nearly ten years ago in the village of La Frette-sur-Seine, at a show in a small local gallery where the windows look directly on to the river,
the weeping willows, and the light in the sky. I mention this personal note because, while looking at her paintings, I was struck by the force of their real-life presence.
Nora Douady “gives us sight,” to borrow the title of one of Paul Éluard’s books of poetry, in that she both invites us and empowers us to see—to join in scrutinizing the infinitesimal and the infinite, until the reality of a tree, leaf, pebble, or flowing water takes on the power and mystery of a dream.
The emotion we feel when looking at a painting, reading a poem or listening to music is often—indeed, almost always—triggered by the feeling of “recognition,” an undefinable sensation not of a mere déja vu but rather of a déjà rêvé, of something “already dreamed” that awaits revelation. Starting from an active observation of reality, Nora Douady seeks to reach its deepest layers—whether she is focused on the branch of a tree, a cliff, a seagull in flight, or shimmering reflections on water. Nora would likely approve Paul Valéry’s claim that looking means “forgetting the names of the things one sees.” This involves forgetting names and looking at a thing as one would on Man’s first day on Earth, absorbing its shape, color, and light, then merging with the material, with the ochre, green, and blue cast onto the canvas—until the resurgence, from somewhere unknown, of a recollected emotion or the blurred image of a forgotten childhood landscape. Cézanne stated that painting is “realizing one’s sensations.” Nora’s works sometimes suggest weightlessness, as if they were recomposing before our eyes a dream universe from the strongest sensory reality of a pebble, a fog, or the clear waters of a stream. The uniqueness of her work lies precisely in this never-ending to-and-fro—an oscillation between her minute observation of reality and her desire to escape from it, in order to preserve, perhaps, the pure sensation of being vitally in touch with the living world.
Beatrice Commengé
I first saw Nora Douady’s work nearly ten years ago in the village of La Frette-sur-Seine, at a show in a small local gallery where the windows look directly on to the river,
the weeping willows, and the light in the sky. I mention this personal note because, while looking at her paintings, I was struck by the force of their real-life presence.
Nora Douady “gives us sight,” to borrow the title of one of Paul Éluard’s books of poetry, in that she both invites us and empowers us to see—to join in scrutinizing the infinitesimal and the infinite, until the reality of a tree, leaf, pebble, or flowing water takes on the power and mystery of a dream.
The emotion we feel when looking at a painting, reading a poem or listening to music is often—indeed, almost always—triggered by the feeling of “recognition,” an undefinable sensation not of a mere déja vu but rather of a déjà rêvé, of something “already dreamed” that awaits revelation. Starting from an active observation of reality, Nora Douady seeks to reach its deepest layers—whether she is focused on the branch of a tree, a cliff, a seagull in flight, or shimmering reflections on water. Nora would likely approve Paul Valéry’s claim that looking means “forgetting the names of the things one sees.” This involves forgetting names and looking at a thing as one would on Man’s first day on Earth, absorbing its shape, color, and light, then merging with the material, with the ochre, green, and blue cast onto the canvas—until the resurgence, from somewhere unknown, of a recollected emotion or the blurred image of a forgotten childhood landscape. Cézanne stated that painting is “realizing one’s sensations.” Nora’s works sometimes suggest weightlessness, as if they were recomposing before our eyes a dream universe from the strongest sensory reality of a pebble, a fog, or the clear waters of a stream. The uniqueness of her work lies precisely in this never-ending to-and-fro—an oscillation between her minute observation of reality and her desire to escape from it, in order to preserve, perhaps, the pure sensation of being vitally in touch with the living world.
Beatrice Commengé