The Apple Tree
Jules Paressant (French, 1917-2001)
Oil on found wood panel
17 1/4 x 11 1/4 inches
 
The nature of the apple, as an idea unto itself, is ever young, ever fresh and free from the ravages of time whereas the minor distress of the actual concrete materials- oil paints and wood, are the furtive elements subject to the ravages of time. The painting is an interesting conversation about what has constancy and permanence: ideas or materials? 
 
Jules Paressant, the man who claimed the right to dare everything.
Jules Paressant was born in Herbignac on February 12, 1917. The surgeon he became liked to point out that he was the son of a clog maker and the grandson of a mason. Nantes was his adopted city. It was in Nantes where he was a practicing physician, at the Saint-Martin clinic, from 1944 to 1981. But Nantes was also the city where he devoted practically all his leisure hours to the visual arts: painting, sculpture, but also tapestry, ceramics, mosaics. He was a jack of all trades.
 
Heir of Gauguin:
His painting, which made him known to the public when he was well into his sixties, was mainly inspired by Paul Gauguin, of whom he was an admirer, and by extrapolation, by the Pont-Aven school. He claimed to be its heir, but with a reservation: "Pont-Aven is the beginning of the modern era, but we must not allow ourselves to be locked into a system. I claim the right to turn 180 degrees, to dare everything." He did not deprive himself of this throughout his life.
“My master? All humanity!”
 
Jules Paressant was a free man, especially since he was free from material concerns. Pleasing was not his priority, and even less so following fashion. He claimed it: "Art has existed for five million years. If we have to claim a master, it would not be one man but all of humanity."
 
A principle he did not deprive himself of. Most of his sculpted work is inspired by African art and pre-Columbian civilizations. Which explains why the man, like the artist, was difficult to pin down, to classify. Jules Paressant is a primitive, if we are to believe the specialists.
 
From 1952 to 1989, he participated in group exhibitions in France and abroad. Beginning in 1985 numerous solo exhibitions were devoted to him, including a retrospective at the Pont-Aven museum in 1985. This was followed in 1990 by a tribute to the artist at the Nantes Museum of Fine Arts, as well as at the Château des Ducs de Bretagne, also in Nantes.
 
He became wider known through various book and publications devoted to his artistic output which then allowed the public to better understand the artist's work.