The Sculpted Rocks of Rothéneuf

In 1879 in a small town in the south-east of France called Châteauneuf-de-Galaure, a postman began the construction of a fantastic palace, which took 33 years to complete and which today bears his name, Palais Cheval. Some 15 years later, at the other end of the country on the coast of Brittany, a priest known as Father Fouré began the creation of an equally fantastic set of seaside sculptures, earning him the nickname of the Breton Cheval. Photo: Gilles San Martin/Wikimedia His real name was Adolphe Julien Fouéré and he was ordained a priest in 1863. He served in several parishes until a vascular problem in 1894 caused him to practically lose his hearing, forcing him to retire. He took refuge in the small village of Rothéneuf (the birthplace of the explorer Jacques Cartier), about five kilometers northeast of Saint-Malo. There, with no previous artistic knowledge, he became interested in sculpture and began a work framed in the incipient Art Brut (art created outside the limits of official culture), the interest in primitivism and the exotic, and the naive or naïve. Between 1894 and 1907 he created numerous sculptures in wood, which anyone could see by visiting his house, which he had turned into a sort of museum. He sculpted everything from totem poles to political figures of the time, saints, mythological beings, animals, whose shape was usually adapted to the shape of the piece of wood he carved. Adolphe Julien Fouéré. Photo: rochersrotheneufartbrut.com   But undoubtedly his most famous work is the more than 300 sculptures he carved directly on the granite rocks along the Emerald Coast (Côte d'Émeraude), a monumental outdoor work exposed to marine erosion. The ensemble includes free-standing figures and mainly bas-reliefs, which Fouré polychromed with bright colors (according to the author's own writings, mostly in blue, light yellow, maroon and chocolate colors), and whose features he emphasized by applying tar.