Northern European painting, especially Flemish painting, cannot be interpreted in the same way as Italian painting. While an Italian painting should be read from the whole to the details, a Northern European painting requires the opposite approach: one must start by examining the details before grasping the overall composition.
These words, with which Federico Zeri taught how to interpret Northern European artistic production of the fifteenth century, come to mind when looking at the works of Kristjana S Williams.
Each of her works resists an immediate, comprehensive grasp; they remain elusive. One may catch glimpses of their colors, their atmosphere, certain macro-details, but the whole inevitably escapes. Everything lies in the details that are scattered throughout, and only by gathering them, one by one, like breadcrumbs of meaning, can one access a deep and complete understanding.
The details become the key to crossing the threshold of the visible world, of what is seen. These details are immediately recognizable because they do not align with experience or common sense. They are grafts that do not exist in nature: quadrupeds with crests, flying fish, pairs of Cacatua sulphurea and Cacatua galerita wrapped in elegant silk kimonos, haughty deer crowned with butterfly wings, birds flying with the help of interlaced hands that mimic the position and movement of wings. Leopards softened by elaborate botanical hairstyles, little girls with blossoming eyes, a dragon with a beak, mischievous tree trunks with watchful eyes, architectures that defy gravity.
The Journey of Leroy and Papillaud
A large map, rich in intricate details, narrates the “round-the-world journey without a penny” undertaken by Lucien Leroy and Henri Papillaud from 1895 to 1898. It is a world map immersed in the warm light of sunset, watched over by the authoritative yet playful gaze of two cheetahs, each suspended from its own exuberant hot-air balloon. Symbols of many of the locations they visited can be recognized, especially those where they were able to edit, compose, and print an issue of En route—such as the facade of the Hephaisteion in Athens, the Turtle Tower, the Mexican pyramid of the monumental complex of Chichén Itzá in Yucatán, among many others.
Naturally, their rooster-shaped bicycle is included, perfectly representing the pride of the French travelers. It appears both at the lower margin of the tableau and in the hot-air balloon soaring over the Pacific Ocean, drawn by two emblematic coqs, with an inviting wheel of Gruyère de France in place of the basket.
Rich in symbolism, the map offers visitors the chance to engage in an artistic treasure hunt, identifying, for example, a peculiar mode of transport—half terrestrial, half airborne, both secure and weightless. This imaginative hybrid is a fusion of two elements sourced by Williams’ vivid creativity from the illustrated iconographic material of the Nouveau Larousse illustré.
Beyond the journalists’ itinerary, this exhibition presents for the first time the surviving testimonies of their passionate and adventurous journey: issues 9, 10, and 14 of En route, preserved in the Poma Periodicals collection of the Vatican Library. These are the copies printed in Saigon, Hanoi, and Mexico City, the last of which recapitulates the entire journey for subscribers and readers, providing a comprehensive account also in English and Spanish.
Each of these newspapers is displayed alongside—and “narrated” by—the works of Kristjana S Williams: maps inhabited by a fantastical and unknown fauna (felines with spiral eyes, rams with wide fringes on their foreheads, keeled turtles, blossoming monkeys and iguanas, baroque-style flamingos, and feathered butterflies); dioramas featuring libraries and historical settings overrun by animals and plants in ways never seen before; bubble-like maps through which futuristic modes of transport glide; as well as compasses, sextants, and astrolabes for navigation.
Scattered throughout are hands jotting down observations and clocks floating in midair, serving as reminders of the importance of taking one’s time—to pause, to truly see—without letting the relentless passage of hours distort and diminish our vital experiences.
Next: Elements of style and costumes in the heritage of the BAV