Since time immemorial, whales have fascinated people and left a universal mark on the imagination. A nurturing figure born of the goddess of the sea, whales are deeply respected by the Inuit. In Vietnam, cetaceans are seen as ferrymen, carrying the souls of the dead on their backs to the realm of the dead. It was the whale that God chose as the instrument of his wrath to punish Jonah’s disobedience. Finally, it was the white Moby Dick that shattered Captain Ahab’s thirst for revenge and his dream of domination.

It was therefore primarily a sense of admiration and respect for whales that brought painter Cédric Peltier and stained glass artist Marie Grillo together when they decided to collaborate on this four-handed screen.

At the root of their creation is their love for this mysterious animal, whose imposing grace gives it an undeniable majesty. In order to preserve its stature, the off-frame effect was chosen as the compositional principle: unable to enclose the cetacean within the limited perimeter of the frame, they chose to create the expectation of seeing the animal glide by in its tranquil slowness.

But despite its power and extraordinary abilities, the whale remains a vulnerable animal, threatened by the many changes affecting natural environments, particularly the oceans, and neither its giant body nor its serene gaze can hide its fragility.

The glass used to make the screen has the same duality. Hard but fragile, solid but brittle, it is also a noble material. The blown glass chosen by Marie Grillo and Cédric Peltier is dotted with bubbles that evoke both the depths of the sea and the fragility of the ephemeral. Covered – almost traversed – by bubbles gliding over its skin, the whale is adorned with a delicate veil that contrasts with its power and contributes to the ambivalence of its representation.

However, this in no way detracts from the obvious strength of this creature. Cédric Peltier, accustomed to working with brilliance on his canvases and handling materials that reflect light, imagines a gradient of gold and silver leaf to reveal the whale. Treating the glass like a canvas, he applies, crumples and textures sheets of white gold, palladium and black Japanese silver. The entire body of the whale is thus finely gilded, leaf by leaf. The cumulative effect of the three golden hues creates volume while giving the animal its full brilliance. The majestic character of the whale is echoed by the preciousness of the gold used by Cédric Peltier and its rich brilliance in the light.

Marie Grillo, meanwhile, works with transparent glass. Inspired by the work of 19th-century glassmaker L.C. Tiffany, she sets out to represent the wave by superimposing layers of glass, which she colours blue in varying shades depending on their position. It takes five layers of hand-painted glass, superimposed on top of each other, to achieve the desired deep colour. Each layer of glass has a different shade of blue, on which Marie Grillo creates textures and plays with materials using grisaille and enamel. At the bottom of the composition, the dark blue turns almost black, with only a few sandblasted elements adding a luminous sparkle. Layer after layer, the whale seems to sink into ever deeper waters, as if to seal its mystery forever.

Between brilliance and transparency, between glass and gold, homage is paid here to the whale which, in its fragile majesty and vulnerable power, gazes at us with wisdom that we must humbly support.