Paul Ardenne's 'Sans visage' Reviewed: A Faceless Woman in Saintonge

In his third novel 'Sans visage' (Grasset), art critic Paul Ardenne crafts a mystery around a faceless woman found dead on the banks of the Charente River. The narrator investigates the life of Marie Rosale, a Spanish immigrant's daughter whose extraordinary beauty defies time and violence. Ardenne employs colloquial language, apostrophe, and second-person narration to explore themes of eternal beauty and disfigurement, drawing parallels to Victor Hugo's 'The Man Who Laughs' and Oscar Wilde's 'The Picture of Dorian Gray' in reverse. The novel references historical disfigurements like WWI 'gueules cassées' and a recent case of a woman partly devoured by her dog. Ardenne's philosophical digressions on Saintongeais culture echo Anaximander. The story suggests Marie Rosale's face may survive in a Louvre portrait, perhaps by Anton Mengs. The review by Michel Vignard in artpress highlights Ardenne's fantastical take on art criticism.