“Why should we always associate Switzerland with clichés?”

French visual artist Manon Daviet has designed textile paintings for the decoration of the 90 rooms of the Grand Hotel Belvedere from the Bernese Wengen station. Its reasons derive the best from Switzerland. A culture that according to her cannot be confused with shots.

In Wengen, a charming ski resort in the heart of the Bernese Oberland, stands the Grand Hotel Belvedere. This luxury establishment overlooks the Lauterbrunnen valley and offers a breathtaking view of the proud Jungfrau. Suffice to say that it has a dream panorama.

The hotel, made up of two buildings, was renovating last year. The first building opened in December 2024. The second will welcome customers from May 6, 2025. In total, 90 rooms whose design is inspired by the world of the Alps.

In this enchanting setting find the textile paintings of the French visual artist Manon Daviet, 31 years old. Originally from Annecy (Haute-Savoie), the young woman knows the Alpine landscapes well. Responding to an order, she therefore designed paintings that adorn the walls of these rooms.

An idea of ​​purity

“It was the Saint-Lazare art and design studio, established in Paris, which placed the order for me. His representative, Marie Veidig, served as a relay between me and the management of the hotel, says the visual artist. From the first briefing, she told me: you really have to imagine a paradise, very preserved landscape. In Wengen, there are many places prohibited for cars’ traffic. The village and the hotel reflect the idea of ​​a soothing Switzerland very well. The Saint-Lazare studio therefore did not want my textile paintings to be disconnected from this natural environment ”.

Manon Daviet followed the advice given to him: “I visualized the place like a haven of greenery. The first idea that came to me was purity; It served me as a common thread and nourished my imagination, which is not far from that of my Savoyard childhood. I also worked a lot from photos representing Wengen and the hotel ”.

Bouquetin, chalet, cow, alpine bell, cheese, snow, sheep and a summit: the Matterhorn. So many patterns that Manon Daviet’s paintings illustrate. But in short, aren’t these shots that stick so much like Switzerland?

Not all Helvetians live in chalets

“Why should we always associate Switzerland with pictures?” Not all the Helvetians live in chalets, next to a glass of milk or a chocolate tablet, retorts Manon Daviet. My paintings evoke landscapes or local traditions, that’s all. The production of cheese, for example. We can laugh about it, but I see it a pride. I remain sensitive to the beauty of a craft. In my reasons, I find places, animals, objects that I myself have known as a child ”.

Foreign artists and writers have opinions as divergent as it is unexpected over Switzerland. Belgian novelist Patrick Roegiers, for example, is an obsession for money in this country. Witness his humorous book “The King, Donald Duck and the Holidays of the designer”. A fiction where he imagined a meeting, in 1948 on the shore of Lake Geneva, between Hergé, the famous author of “Tintin” and Léopold, the king of Belgians.

The two men Take on the air. A Swiss, Ersatz of police officer, challenges them:

– Do you have the license to watch the lake?

– How much is it?

– 50 Swiss francs

– It is not given

– Everything is paid

– We noted it

– No money, no Swiss

– What a beautiful country!

A differently beautiful country in the gaze of the French essayist Pascal Bruckner who translates, in one of his books, the acronym CH by these words: “hypnotic confederation”. Her humor is rather affectionate: “Switzerland is my metavers, it gives birth to a wonder in me to which is added a feeling of security that I do not find elsewhere in Europe”, he confided to us in 2022.

“I didn’t think a second in Heidi”

What is a resident of the world saying to Switzerland? Difficult to escape this question when you carry out an artistic work intended for a hotel, a place of passage for countless foreigners. The answer that can come to mind is folklore, a catchy theme. Take Heididorf, the original village of Heidi, Mini-Disneyland from Switzerland, highly prized by tourists.

“Ah no! I did not think of it for a second when I received the order, loose Manon Daviet. On the other hand, I am very attracted and inspired by the Poyas [tableaux dessinés ou peints représentant la montée aux alpages]a typically Swiss popular and naive art that I really appreciate. My paintings can also be read as so many sequences of a Poya. They tell a simple life and the happiness that follows from it. ”

The mountain, Manon Daviet learned to love her during her hikes when she went from France to Switzerland with the feeling that the borders were erased under her feet as if by magic. “When I was going to Geneva, things, however, changed,” she says. The city brought me its share of leisure, sometimes rowdy. It was no longer really ‘my’ Swiss “.

Text reread and verified by Samuel Jaberg