Belle Marquise, an installation conceived by Vera Molnár in Grignan

From February 7, an installation by Vera Molnár (1924–2023) brings a fragment of literary history back to life through a stroll through the streets of Grignan. With Belle Marquise, Vera Molnár conceived one of her final works: an installation of six typographic squares inspired by verses by Molière and the figure of the Marquise de Madame de Sévigné.

Developed in close collaboration with the Centre national des arts plastiques, the graphic studio SpMillot, and with the participation of local residents, this work—donated by the artist—unfolds across public space as a subtle typographic composition, blending poetry and geometric abstraction, on the façade of a bakery, a pharmacy, the wall of the ramparts, and that of the château.

This installation by Vera Molnár thus joins five other works by artists from the Cnap collection on deposit in Grignan.

A work born of an exchange with the Cnap

Belle Marquise is not, strictly speaking, a commission, but rather the donation to the Centre national des arts plastiques (Cnap) of a work that Vera Molnár—a major figure of geometric abstraction—developed over the course of several weeks of close dialogue with the institution.

The story of this installation, the last conceived by the artist, is both simple and elegant. The Cnap, which preserves and promotes the “museum without walls” of the French State, had proposed to the municipality of Grignan the deposit—and in practical terms, the execution—of a large wall painting by Molnár, entitled Orthogonal, acquired by the Cnap in 2014. The artist had been informed of the project and of the various locations that might host the mural.

At the time, she was working on what she called a “travel sculpture”: a cube that folds, slips into an envelope, and can be unfolded upon arrival in a hotel room. Each face of the cube is engraved with a poem by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, translated into six languages, Wanderer’s Night Song. Always eager to surprise, she suggested instead installing, on the walls of Grignan, a large-scale variation of this work in progress, in the form of six large enamel panels distributed throughout the town.

After a few days, however, she realized that the connection between Goethe and the Drôme region was, at best, tenuous. Familiar with the history of Grignan, she recalled that the Marquise de Madame de Sévigné had spent her final days there. The very title of “marquise” led her to think of the famous passage from Le Bourgeois gentilhomme, in which Molière humorously depicts Monsieur Jourdain discovering that he has been speaking prose all his life without knowing it.

To the five variations proposed by the philosophy master—one short of covering the six faces of a cube—Vera Molnár added a sixth: “Yeux beaux belle vos marquise font me mourir d’amour.”

Thus was born a tribute to Madame de Sévigné and to Molière, which would unfold in Grignan across six one-metre-square enamel panels, screen-printed and installed throughout the town.

Typography and Abstraction

This was not the first time that Vera Molnár had imagined drawing with letters.

In this particular case, the design of the typographic squares was entrusted to SpMillot, a duo of graphic designers among the most respected of their generation in the field of book design. They chose to use the typography of Le Bourgeois gentilhomme in its original edition: screen-printed on six enamel panels, the letters—spaced differently—form perfect squares, without ever sacrificing the legibility of the text, achieving what the 17th century would have called a “fine order.”

Vera Molnár was able to see the mock-up of these panels and approved their design with undisguised enthusiasm. Having passed away in December 2023, she unfortunately did not see their realization in Grignan.

“Writing and drawing are one and the same,” said Paul Klee: Vera Molnár beautifully illustrates this principle, while also deploying her art of the fugue—a play on infinitesimal variations of a single form.