For the 100th anniversary of the pantheonization of Jean Jaurès, a large fresco in honor of the politician was created in Toulouse, one of the most important cities in his career.
The fresco covers the facade of a building located in the center of the Pink City, where the premises of Le Midi Socialiste were located, a newspaper published between 1908 and 1944 for which Jaurès wrote.
The painter Rémi Tournier, originally from Lot, reproduced the bronze statue of the sculptor Paul Ducuing “Jaurès orator”, taken from one of the rare photos of the former deputy, taken in 1913 during a speech at Pré-Saint -Gervais.
“Pantheonization is a kind of second burial, so for me, painting a sculpture is a way of paying homage to the homage,” explains the 40-year-old artist.
In Toulouse, Jaurès was successively a teacher at the Faculty of Letters and at the Saint-Sernin high school, a journalist and deputy at the town hall, before being assassinated in Paris in 1914.
He was then pantheonized ten years later, in 1924. A ceremony is organized for this occasion at the Pantheon by the Socialist Party on Friday.
Central alleys of the city bear his name, as do the University of Toulouse and the main metro station.
On the 90m² fresco, Jaurès, caught in the middle of a speech, is accompanied by a stack of drum boxes, which refers in particular to the Toulouse cultural association Samba Résilles, now occupying the Midi Socialist building.
The work, entitled “The Melody of Contrasts”, was produced in seven days, and aims, according to its author, to celebrate “the unity in diversity” dear to Jaurès and his political vision, as well as “the live together”.
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