Project Description

Oil on panel

Dimensions : 61,5 cm x 96 cm

Signed lower left : Christmas Vesper

Painter's studio interior

Christmas VESPER (1882-1944)

Christmas Vesper, real name Noël Nougat, was born in Mérindol on 25 December 1882. In 1897, thanks to the help of Pastor Urbain de Robert, he entered high school and the preparatory school of theology in Tournon-sur-Rhône in Ardèche.

He followed the courses of this school until 1902. Joseph Parnin, then high school principal, was for him an incomparable master and remained his friend until his death in 1935.

He continued his theological studies at the Faculty of Protestant Theology of Montauban in 1902 at 1906. He supports in 1905 a baccalaureate thesis in theology on the Spiritual Exercises of Ignatius of Loyola.

Lourmarin

Pastor of the Reformed Church from 1906, it plays a definite role in the reconstruction of the château de Lourmarin from 1920 when Robert Laurent-Vibert discovered this castle.

1917

Perhaps he is even the architect of this discovery since these two met in the army of the Orient, – where Henri Bosco also served-, probably in Salonika in 1917. Close to Laurent-Vibert he was also politically : he is part of the Protestants of Action française, remained faithful to Charles Maurras and his doctrine, with whom he runs the Sully Association and will participate in the weekly Sully between 1942 and 1944.

1925

Philosopher, essayist, but also a poet in French and Provençal and peintre, he is Secretary of the first Council of the Lourmarin Foundation after the death of Robert Laurent-Vibert in 1925.

While continuing his activity as a pastor in the communes of Lourmarin, La Roque-d’Anthéron, Peypin-d’Aigues, Lauris and Pertus, he publishes from 1930 un bulletin, which after a few months of interruption in 1938-1939, published as part of the “Fraternal Union of the Protestant Press” under the title Les Vaudois du Luberon.

Lourmarin Castle

He meets Henri Bosco, who is making his first stay there in April 1922, and until he completed his novel Pierre Lampédouze le 3 octobre 1923. The letters from Noël Vesper to Henri Bosco begin in April 1923 and their exchange is above all an exchange between two poets.

Their literary friendship shines through in their exchanges around “Dionysus”, Christmas poem Vesper, of his verses published in the magazine Marsyas ; Henri Bosco welcomes the texts of Noël Vesper in Aguedal, including “Leda” in its first issue.

They will publish a joint collection of poems in 1925 at the Lourmarin Terraces, the aptly named The Poets.

Noël Vesper devotes two articles to Henri Bosco in La Vie nouvelle, Protestant magazine printed in Montauban under the direction of Pastor Lafon : “The Wild Boar”, and “Le Trestoulas – The inhabitant of Sivergues”, articles that Henri Bosco appreciated2.

They also find themselves in their religious sensitivity, the sense of the sacred where Christianity is combined with the worship of pagan antiquity and the sense of symbolism and esotericism.

Arrested with his wife on Liberation, they will be killed on 24 August 1944 in Buoux in the Luberon, which will shock Henri Bosco a lot.

Source : http://bunum.univ-cotedazur.fr/omeka-s-dev/s/mai_68/item/724

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