Jean-Louis Schefer's 'La cause des portraits' Explores Childhood and Painting

In his latest book, 'La cause des portraits,' French philosopher and art critic Jean-Louis Schefer returns to the origins of his thought through a memoir of childhood during wartime. The narrative begins with a train journey to Holland, where a young Schefer, described as a distracted child, experiences the world as a series of fragile, dreamlike revelations—soap bubbles, the texture of velvet, translucent fruits. The book is structured in three chapters: 'les voyages,' 'la nuit,' and 'cause des portraits,' intertwining temporalities and suspending time like stars appearing on summer evenings. Central to the story is Françoise, a companion whose gaze and presence anchor Schefer's memories and later his lifelong obsession with understanding portraits. He recalls visits to the Louvre with her, before she became a nun, where paintings—war scenes, chosen Virgins, annunciations, coronations—acquire a secret meaning through their shared emotion. Schefer sees this work as uncovering the 'origin of truth' behind his entire oeuvre, from his first book 'Scénographie d'un tableau' onward. The book is a meditation on beauty, exile, and the 'lesson of reality' glimpsed through a train window. Published by artpress, the review by Judith Brouste highlights Schefer's ability to render the essential, fragile encounter that both ends childhood and inscribes it forever.