A piece of art is the fruit of an intention to highlight the beauty of a share in the world. This beauty, made of a glance or of an auroral glow upon the curve of a hip; of some murmurs or some cries, some waves or some water, snow, sand or stormy skies. The same beauty that has always cherished the imaginary world of a poet, a musician, of dancers, painters and sculptors. Amongst the sculptors one. Born in Quebec(Canada), whose exquisite fine work made of wood or bronze is of a magnificent caliber. His name: Mr Louis Saint-Cyr.

A genuine autodidact

Louis Saint-Cyr claims himself as someone that started into sculpture quite late in his life. Not longer than ten years ago. But what extraordinary craftsman he is! And say that he acquired his experience by himself. A genuine autodidact. Ingenious ! Never having to endure a Master in his life, autodidacts have always been astonishing! One with audacity, courage and ability which exceed those of the common run of people. Louis Saint-Cyr possesses all these qualities in their highest degree. Rewarding, but not exactly what makes him an artist of value. Let us not confuse technique with poetry, or rather, art with invention, the latter being often, more or less tributary to the former.

St-Cyr’s work

Actually, there is a great probability that our artist began in sculpture much earlier than he thinks. I dare even say that it might have been decades before his handling a gouge and a mallet first time in his life. An artist does not come up all as a sudden. I am sure that a long inner work must have been done in his spirit, well before his hands giving rise to an authentic piece of art.

Louis Saint-Cyr indeed admits, at the age of nine, being captivated by the movements of some swallows spouting out of an abrupt hardened sand wall making an impressive huge circle above his head. One supposes that that was possibly a vital element which awakened initially the child, later the man, not only interested in the swallow of sands, but in several different species of birds in the nature, in the museums or anyworks of ornithology. Louis Saint-Cyr’s work is not just concerned about the morphological copy of certain birds but very much involved with their movements which have privailed the anatomical form in his most recent works.

À l'affût American kestrel 19" X 18½ x 30½ Bronze 2004

A new turning On the properly sculptural level, the artist’s latest works have taken new turnings, already been noticed taking shape over the last few years, mainly in his masterful pieces. Let us take the piece "À l’affût", for instance, representing a Kestrel, horizontal wings, head pricking towards the ground, supported by a round copper stem coming out of a squared block of a black marble stripped with a light green frothy mass suggestive of the sea. The bird itself is of a seizing reality . Needless to reinforce this fantastic aspect of the artist which has been so much praised by many others prior to me. What strikes me most in this piece is not the bird exactly, but the three elements in perfect symbiosis. It is a real turn of force which the artist fully succeeds creating such unit with three different material such as wood, copper and marble. The angle given to the bird, the length of the stem and its curve cause a phenomenal effect of altitude. The effect touches beauty and reality. Not only in this piece, but in many of his works does Saint-Cyr succeed and surprise, leading the observer to think, as if by magic, that the bird can really fly.

Predicts a change of style

He succeeds in diverting one’s attention from the point of support laid under one of the wings. Even though it is quite visible, it is not perceived as a support but rather as a trail of light left behind the bird just before its total immobility. One could call it the illusion of an illusion. It acts as a pretence of the retinal persistence and predicts a notorious change of style in the course of the artist: little by little the bird "loses its feathers" literally and figurative, to highlight a take-off, a dash, a plunge into the space.

New creations (bronzes)

Such a reversal forces Louis Saint-Cyr to go to the physical limits of the material. Despite its hardness, black walnut tree, rose wood as well as several other invaluable wood cannot be thinned with excess that the sculptor has no choice but run new pieces out of bronze. This new medium has encouraged him to launch out in new creations in which abstraction takes the step, little by little on the figuration. Henceforward, the birds stretch out in narrow ribbons, lengthened wings and reduced. The scratches partly disappear from the feathers. The head being the only part that reminds the former style, remains faithful to the traditional animalistic art. One can see now, more than ever seen before in his pieces, birds leaving their base, whirling or splitting the sky leaving behind a furrow of brigh light. Thus it is the great masterpieces which trace out the memorial space to the most receptive beings in the world.

Roger Langevin
Sculptor and professor-researcher At the University of Quebec in Rimouski