To build an art collection is to tell a story.
It begins with an eye, an appropriation of sorts, of images which are the iconographic interpretation of what we are, of what we feel, and of our potential projections.
Between fascination and sublimation, to reunite meaningful works filled with a profound symbolic function.
It is no doubt also, beyond temptations of vanity and the obsessiveness, a way to leave a trace, a testimony.
In the most demanding, honest and coherent way possible, we wanted to base our collection on three fundamental concepts: emotion, History, and connections.
Through the eye, sensitivity captures the representation and generates emotion. Based on a subjective perception of “beauty” and “strength”, and beyond aestheticism, emotion transports us. In this sense, it makes us feel life and stimulates our imagination. It widens our sense of possibilities and nourishes our deepest aspirations. It reconnects us with what is beyond us; it is a path to elevation.
History in general, and the history of art in particular, intimately linked to that of science and literature, restores our common heritage and testifies to our collective memory. It revives a sense of slow time and restores the transversal and timeless dimension of art, further confirming the view that rupture is just an illusion. In the eyes on history, ruptures are but tremors of continuity. History contextualises and allows one to apprehend a work of art and to induce a reflection along the axis of the perspectives it generates. History is a school of humility, it structures our research and protects us from the blind arrogance that freedom affords.
Connections are omnipresent in this story; they re-establish the very essence of this vis-à-vis; they bring down the siloes of thought and reason which result from them. They reconnect humanity with history, the living with the dead, the real with what reality inspires. They link origins to the perpetual renewal of creation. Finally, they fuse in a common dynamic, man and the art of man. To that effect, they harbour the ability of artworks to constantly question us.
In 2016, we decided to merge our respective collections. This exercise forces us to take a certain distance with the introspection of the collector. But in sharing our eyes and challenging our respective influences and sensitivities, we have progressed in our confrontation. We are enriched by our differences and have attained from this a leitmotiv :
“modernity in classical and classical in modernity”.
This is the axis and the nervous system of our iconographic quest which tends to demonstrate only that art is free of all restrictions and all contingencies beyond the passing of time…
We wish to share our vision through our collaborations with both public and private, French and foreign institutions. Our collection is alive, it mutates, evolves, travels. It thrives on its environment and its time. It must embody an act of resistance through meaningful choices.
This site aims to share our common passion with collectors, art historians and curators. Opening our collection allows us to bring our story to life, to stimulate exchanges, reflections and knowledge which we hope will nourish it further and always.
Jean-Gabriel de Bueil & Stanislas Ract-Madoux
®Collection de Bueil & Ract-Madoux (Paris)
