Augustin Joseph Lesage was born in the north of France on August 9, 1876, in Saint-Pierre-lez-Auchel, a small town in the district of Béthune in Pas de Calais.
He came from a family of miners, uprooted from the rural world. His great-grandfather, Louis Lesage, like his grandfather Augustin Joseph, were farmers in Saint-Venant. They were both day laborers and worked for the landowners in the surrounding area, depending on the seasons and the work on the land. His father, Gustave, left his native village and settled in Saint-Pierre-lez-Auchel. It was there that he met his future wife, Mélanie Bernard, herself the daughter of a miner and originally from Calais.
Augustin's childhood passed without incident in the middle of the mine, the slag heaps and the red brick houses, the mining villages; he was educated in the school created by the Compagnie des Mines de Ferfay. At that time, school was compulsory until the age of thirteen. Marie, his youngest sister, died at the age of three and this event had a terrible impact on him. He would speak about it much later as an adult. Augustin obtained his certificate at the age of fourteen on July 25, 1890 [1]. By tradition and probably also to bring in an extra salary for the family home, he in turn became a worker at the Ferfay mine as a galibot [2].
As a young man, in 1894 he met his future wife Irma Armandine Diéval, also a miner's daughter. On May 5, 1895, Irma and Augustin had a daughter whom they named Marguerite Armandine.
In 1898, he lost his brother Eustache Bénoni. As was often the case in families at that time, grief mounted. Lesage donned his uniform and completed his national service.
Linked to Amboise Lecomte, another miner like him, Lesage became interested under his influence in the social policy of the small town of Ferfay. Life in the mine and the fate of the miners concerned him, and so he attended several union meetings. Influenced by his elder Amboise Lecomte, he ran in the 1908 municipal elections under the Republican-Democratic label. He was elected and even re-elected four years later in 1912. He gradually became a notable within the town, gaining a reputation for being close to the people and their daily concerns.
It was during this same period, between 1911 and 1912, that he reported that a strange thing happened to him while he was working in the mine: I was in the mine, in a very remote gallery, I was working alone in a small fifty-centimeter tunnel... all of a sudden I heard voices talking to me. I looked around in surprise despite the fact that I couldn't even turn around in that part of the gallery. See my amazement! I was scared, my hair stood on end! Then I heard: don't be afraid, we are near you, one day you will be a painter...
According to Lesage, this phenomenon recurred a few days later. He didn't tell anyone. He kept it all to himself, not even speaking about it to his own wife, his closest confidant. He apparently feared that people would question his sanity, that people would regard him as delusional: "I was afraid that people would simply think I was crazy." These voices, however, would accompany him throughout the rest of his life on several occasions and in different forms.
The desire to paint never abandons him and becomes an obsession; the voices gradually transform into inner voices without ever leaving him. These voices that he hears, that he perceives predict a future that he may have certainly envisaged without daring to believe it too much. If this worries him, it obviously remains his secret garden, his intimate, personal life, it simply makes him happy.
Ambroise Lecomte, who influenced him and gradually guided him towards trade unionism and politics, and who also persuaded him to run in the municipal elections, himself followed another inspiration, that of the spiritualist movement. Spiritualism was often present in mining circles in both France and Belgium at this time.
Allan Kardec[3] is seen as the leader of the Spiritist movement in France: Spiritism is the doctrine based on the existence, manifestations and teaching of spirits...and that these spirits are the souls of those who have lived on earth or in other spheres and who have left their temporal envelope.[4]
Allan Kardec will write the codes of spiritualism, he believes in reincarnation and he considers that in order for men to communicate with spirits an intermediary is needed, the medium.[5] The medium becomes an essential notion for spiritualists.
Lesage later told Dr. Eugène Osty[6] that he had never heard of this influence at the time, in 1911, but this seems difficult to admit. Why did he reject this influence at the time? No doubt because it removed, or at least he thought so, the attraction to his personal experience of perceiving voices that spoke only to him and that he was not under an influence that came about through adherence to any school of thought. However, a little later, in fact the following year, in 1912, so very quickly, he became involved and believed in all this and became an active participant in the movement.
The discovery of painting, his need to paint, will forever remain for Augustin Lesage his personal approach. He claims to be unaffected by any influence.
Lesage and his friend Lecomte, on the grounds of having terrible back pains due to working in the mine, decided to go near Douai to Sin-le-Noble, to the Psychosique Institute to be precise. Returning from this trip, which, he later said, did not fully satisfy him, he managed to obtain two works by Léon Denis[7], Après la mort and Jeanne d’Arc médium; these works immediately responded in part to his expectations and the questions he had been asking himself since the appearance of the voices heard at the bottom of the mine. He wrote immediately to Léon Denis after reading the two books; the latter encouraged him in his quest and gave him some additional information on spiritualism[8]. The two men remained very close and corresponded regularly from then on.
Augustin Lesage then decided with a few friends, including Amboise Lecomte, to create a group. They all sat around a small table to pray and waited for something to happen, all hoping for some kind of sign. Lesage recounted this episode a few years later in these terms: we waited there with simplicity, naivety, we all had the desire for something to happen...
The small round table requested designates Lesage as a medium; he thus becomes the vector, the intermediary with the afterlife, the one who communicates with the spirits of the dead. The friends now meet every Thursday evening. After several evenings without any phenomena, a presence manifests itself in the form of writing. Lesage's hand moves and writes on a sheet of paper the following message: the voices you have heard are a reality. One day, you will be a painter. Listen carefully to our advice, you will see that one day everything will come true as we say. Take what we tell you literally and one day your mission will be accomplished.
From now on, every Thursday, the medium Augustin Lesage performs, messages or drawings appear. They are then signed: Marie, his youngest sister who died at the age of three. However, it seems certain that he is not naive and that he knows that his sister having died before having learned to read, write and draw cannot sign these messages, but the thought of his sister makes that through his hand, his younger sister communicates in this way with him. The hand, simple instrument of the beyond, thus produces several drawings well filled on the graphic level: ovals, spirals, dotted lines fill the entire surface of the paper. Messages accompany these drawings signed very often by his deceased younger sister. Soon a new stage appears regarding his mission during another session and another more precise message is communicated to him: learn to pray... then during another session... today, it is no longer a question of drawing but of painting. Yes, one day you will be a painter and your works will be subject to science. You will find this ridiculous at first, it is we who will draw by your hand, do not try to understand, above all follow our advice. First of all we will give you in writing, the names of the brushes, of the colors that you will go to look for at Mr. Poriche in Lillers, you will go look there and you will find everything you need... you will start on sheets of paper before starting on the canvas. The choice of material seems to disconcert Lesage; he acquired his first colors and his first brushes and we remember that he seemed not to choose them himself, he let his hand stop where the spirits wanted to stop their choice.
Shortly after, Lesage used his new materials to create a few sketches on paper, which he attached to the kitchen wall. Hesitantly, he said he dabbed with a large brush and signed his drawings with the first name of his deceased younger sister: Marie. In these early drawings, of which only two or three copies apparently remain, we find the curves and spirals mentioned above. He asked a friend to buy him a canvas, a real canvas for painting, not one on sheets of paper this time. His friend brought him a rolled canvas, not one stretched on a frame; this canvas, with a total surface area of nine square meters, left him perplexed. He thought of cutting it up to obtain smaller formats, but later said that his voices had ordered him to start painting directly. He stretched this 300 x 300 cm canvas on a wall and then began painting in a corner at the top right. The year was 1912.
The spirit kept me in this corner for three consecutive weeks, not knowing very well where I was going...afterwards everything developed, the brush moved from left to right, there was symmetry.
Lesage seems not to really know what is happening to him or where he is going; without any plan, he simply follows his voices. He was ordered to start at the top right without worrying about the rest. Little by little, symmetry appears, geometric space takes its place without any particular will on his part. When he returns from the mine, each evening, he begins to paint in this living room which serves as his kitchen, dining room and studio. It takes him more than a year to complete this work, to finish this first work. However, he feels in painting this way every day, a satisfaction, a fullness, that he has never felt before: nothing could have stopped me from painting, I continued like this until the war.
Lesage and Lecomte then undertook a new experiment with success; healing [9] and this occupied them fully: Sick people came from all sides. We found up to fifty of them in the evening when we returned from the mine. We no longer had time to wash, we had to treat ourselves.[10]
Soon the two friends were offered the opportunity to create an annex of the Psychosique Institute in Béthune. Lesage's family was not very happy and reacted because Augustin resigned from his job at the mine to embark on this adventure. The institute assured Lesage that he would be given time to paint. However, all his energy, all his time was devoted to curing the sick, who were presenting themselves in ever-increasing numbers. This success was not viewed favorably by the medical profession, who saw their clientele somewhat diverted by the two friends. Lesage and Lecomte were summoned by the Béthune Criminal Court following a complaint. In 1913, a trial began. Maître Godin, lawyer for the Psychosique Institute, defended them and presented numerous witnesses who confirmed that they had received neither diagnosis nor medication prescriptions from the two accused. Thus, they could not be accused of posing as doctors. On January 24, 1914, a judgment acquitted them without any costs or expenses of any kind. The status of spiritual healer was thus unofficially granted to them in a way, and the two friends resumed their healing activity with renewed vigor, and this until the war!...
Augustin Lesage was mobilized like all men of this age group[11] and joined the 6th Infantry Regiment in Béthune; Lesage took part in the battles of Dunkirk and Douai without being wounded. His father died the following year, on April 6, 1915.
In November 1916, as a soldier, he was assigned to the Ferfay mines and immediately took the opportunity to start painting again, but gave up healing due to lack of time. In 1918, he was demobilized and settled with his family in Burbure. In March 1921, through a healer from Douai, he met Jean Meyer, director of the Spiritist Review and founder of the Metapsychic Institute.
Augustin Lesage's health deteriorates more quickly than expected; he is forced to abandon the mine to devote himself fully to painting. It is July 6, 1923. This time, Lesage begins his career as a painter like a true professional. He perfects his technique; he develops "forms" in different materials, "sizes" like a seamstress establishes "patterns." He uses lids, small and large plates for the circles, buttons of different diameters. He uses a compass, a set square, rulers, a tape measure and makes preparatory drawings for his most important compositions. He even changes the way he begins his painting, starting from the center then bringing other elements to the right and then to the left, starting from a central axis while trying to maintain the greatest possible symmetry. He certainly still listens to his voices but acts personally more systematically on the canvas itself by using the shapes made and the brushes, colors and pans arranged this time in a very precise order on a table next to his armchair. Lesage assumes himself as a sort of diligent and hardworking craftsman each time he paints, but he never recognizes himself as the true author. He acts like a painter-medium and repeats tirelessly: I do what I am made to do...the one who makes me paint uses me as if he used his own hands when he was alive...there is nothing of me in my work, it does not belong to me...the spirit uses my hand directly.
However, in the work of each artist, we can note in Lesage's creation different stages and periods in his work. A first period is distinguished in his paintings, lasting almost ten years, where we see no figures. Between 1921 and 1929 we are in the presence of very architectural constructions. The first works do not occupy the entire surface of the canvas, a plain background persists almost systematically. Symbolic compositions rise like mystical constructions, straight towards the sky and disturb the viewer's gaze, the latter being as if stunned by a spectacle that he does not understand.
This first period or phase corresponds to the one during which his friend Lecomte is present, that of the mine and the healers, that of the still unexplained voices!...
The second period, the second apostolate, is realized this time with the presence of Jean Meyer in contact with a busy public life and an environment that designates him as a spiritualist, as one of their own. From this new era, the achievements in terms of colors evolve, the pure tones disappear to give way to mixed colors, the tones become warmer with the appearance of browns, purples, reds. The characters appear, faces take place in the middle of the composition and challenge the viewer with their gaze, who can often feel uncomfortable. The looks of the faces are insistent, very present, almost aggressive. Lesage also takes some liberty with symmetry, even if the horizontal lines remain rigorous.
One remark, however, is necessary, whatever the periods of his production: let us say it immediately, Lesage's style is unique and recognizable at first glance; he does not fit into any lineage, any current, any school.
In Paris, in 1925, he met the Scottish novelist Arthur Conan Doyle, whose articles on the pharaohs' curse on Lord Carnavon he had read. This time, he also met Léon Denis in person for the first time. Other important figures who were now important to him were also present: Louis Viala and Dr. Eugène Orsy. They would also become close friends. These meetings gave him confidence, a reassurance he had probably lacked until then. The spiritualists, for their part, found in him a justification for their approach, for this true exchange with the spirits of the dead. In their eyes, Augusin Lesage represented living proof of their words to a wider audience, beyond their followers.
It was from this moment, in 1925, that Lesage had to be careful not to let himself be systematically recruited by the spiritualist movement. Of course, it was difficult to resist and not to be tempted by too much ease. From the end of 1925, his horizons broadened, he participated in numerous meetings of followers but also exhibited in various official salons. In 1926 he exhibited two works at the Salon des Beaux-Arts and then in November, a very beautiful oil painting The Spirit of the Pyramid at the Salon d'Automne.
All these conferences require a lot of his time, a lot of his presence, probably to the detriment of the time he devotes to painting. But once again Augustin feels valued by such concern.
I often think, yes, a minor is here at the Sorbonne, among all these scientific celebrities from all over the world [12]
A little over two years later, in 1929 to be precise, Lesage presented two paintings at the prestigious Salon des Artistes Français; they were very well received. From this date on, his technique evolved very little; he perhaps painted a little more quickly and his gesture became more mechanized. The greatest change was in the composition, which became increasingly decorative and geometric; mythological figures, or at least those who intended to be so, appeared and filled each new canvas. Allegory took precedence over hallucinations and diminished the power of the spiritual message.
Perhaps we can see in this new way of painting an ever-growing solicitation of the spiritualist movement.
Jean Dubuffet would later have a reflection which may give us food for thought: Spiritist circles wished to find in Lesage's paintings confirmations of their doctrines in preference to new creations without reference or precedent.[13]
After the voices and the subsequent realization of his first canvas, Augustin Lesage felt liberated in a way, he had reached a fullness he had never known before; the canvases that followed would only repeat this fullness without adding new elements. If the pictorial technique is constantly improving, it cannot be the same for creation, the artist does not renew himself each time, he increases his production without a revolution in the themes or in the inspiration.
Augustin Lesage is above all a medium, he believes in reincarnation like all spiritualists, he is in contact with the souls of the dead, the disembodied spirits as he often repeats.
Between 1927 and 1930, Lesage felt moreover invested with a mission, that of sharing with as many people as possible, with the people in some way, the mission that the spiritualists had entrusted to him; as a child, a galibot, a soldier, Lesage had always obeyed orders, why not obey this time the orders of his mission? In 1927 he said to Dr. Osty: ...now before painting, I collect myself and I am better under the domination of my guides and the work is easier. I am happy to be able to help the triumph of the work and to continue the work that my guides have designated for me, for the triumph of spiritualism...
From 1934 onwards, Augustin Lesage began travelling in France and abroad. He was accompanied by prominent figures, mainly from the Spiritist Society, and many trips were organised for him. He did not have to worry about the material aspects of the trips; hotels were booked, exhibitions were prepared, and the various stages were selected based on the various important figures that Lesage would meet. These trips were certainly intended to convey Spiritist ideas, but in fact they also allowed him to promote his painting. He himself would send letters and press releases before his trips, managing his communication as one would do today. In 1936, for example, while travelling in Algeria, he wrote: … wishing to submit my paintings to the judgement of the intellectual elite of the Oran population, I have the honour of inviting you to come and see them privately on Thursday, March 19, at the Conservatory of Music from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m.…
Jean-Louis Viala, an intelligent and successful man based in Oran, met Lesage in 1936; a great lover of his painting and a spiritualist himself, he often accompanied him on his travels. At each stop, the press and important figures were invited. The Pas-de-Calais press followed him regularly, did not forget him, and on the contrary, announced every cultural event where one could meet Augustin Lesage and his paintings. Lesage often wrote to local journalists before his visit; he kept his own journal every day and noted many details.
In fact, significant media coverage follows each of his exhibitions. For example, in 1938, a February article in the Réveil du Nord testifies to the importance of Lesage's communication: The magnificent tour of exhibitions that the minor painter Lesage has just made in North Africa is now over. The last one took place in Casablanca, where it saw an extraordinary influx of visitors eager to satisfy the most legitimate of curiosities...
In addition, numerous conferences on Lesage and his work as well as on other subjects [14] often accompany his various performances and are led by his closest friends, in Rabat, Tunis, Algiers, Oran.
Ancient Egypt held an important place in Augustin Lesage's mind; he was introduced to its myths through his friends in spiritualist circles. The discovery of Tutankhamun's tomb in the Valley of the Kings in 1922 by Howard Carter had a resonance with the general public throughout Europe. This civilization left its mark on intellectuals of all stripes and had an influence on Freemasons, spiritualists, and the Compagnonnage. The Egyptians appeared to everyone as the holders of a spiritual truth that was expressed through symbols.
Was it the order of the buildings, the architecture of the monuments, their monumentality, the attention to detail that struck Augustin Lesage the most, or was it also the cult of the dead and tombs? No one knows, but it is logical to ask the question even without providing a formal answer.
In 1939, he finally completed the trip to Egypt he had always dreamed of. Thus, he willingly accepted the proposal of his friends Fournier, Viala and the members of the Guillaume Budé Association. He embarked on February 21 in Marseille with a few paintings, surrounded of course by all his loved ones: Dear friends, I am going on a long trip to Egypt with the Guillaume Budé Association, they are scholars chosen from the University to complete the cycle of their studies on Upper and Lower Egypt. I have the itinerary. The association asks me to kindly take ten paintings, concerning Egypt: it will be responsible for holding exhibitions of my works. One in Cairo and the other in Luxor. I must try to gather the most beautiful ones, because they will be studied in Paris and in Egypt… I will tell you about this great trip which will count in the annals of spiritualism. And at the same time the crowning of my beautiful and noble mission that God has entrusted to me before men... Receive, my dear friends, my fraternal thoughts.
Once there, in Egypt, Lesage of course visited the most prestigious sites and during one of these visits, in the Tomb of Menna[15] he discovered the harvest scene that he had depicted in one of his last paintings painted in Burbure before leaving: A powerful and complex emotion took hold of me. It seemed to me that all of a sudden, being so close to this small scene still intact, seeing it so similar to the one I had done myself, it seemed to me that I was also the author. An indefinable correspondence was established between the painting and me, as if I could not discern whether I had just painted it or only found it again…
The declaration of war interrupted his visits and his trip to Egypt, and Lesage was forced to return to Burbure. In 1942, the death of his son affected him deeply and he stopped all demonstrations; added to this was the fragile health of his wife Mandine. He continued to paint, however, but the tone of his letters to his friends had of course changed a lot: In difficult moments of the day, I really like to meditate in front of my works... I would so much like to live in solitude, withdrawn from the world with my dear friends from space, I expect nothing from humans before departure and the great journey[16].
After all his extensive travels, Lesage was getting old and barely traveled. Mandine, seriously ill, died on July 24, 1950, at the age of seventy-eight. Toward the end of his life, Lesage experienced eye problems, his eyesight was declining, and he found it increasingly difficult to paint. He exhibited once more in Brussels in 1951, but his strength was diminishing and he was no longer able to do so. He stopped painting in 1952 and even stopped writing in 1953. He nevertheless went to Paris one last time in June 1953 for an exhibition at the Maison des Spirites.
Despite all these setbacks and the passing years, Augustin Lesage remained dignified and listened to the friends who came to see him. His generosity and kindness impressed visitors. He calmly awaited his final initiation, which laymen called death. After a final eye surgery, he died on February 21, 1954.
The Latin alchemical formula V.I.T.R.I.O.L: Visita Interiora Terrae Rectificando Invenies Occultam Lapidem [17], borrowed by the masons and which can be read in the reflection room during any masonic initiation, finds its full meaning with Lesage.
Descended into the bowels of the earth from a very young age, having lived as a galibot in the dark for years, his voices and his reflection allowed him to reach the light through painting.
The mission now seems accomplished for this self-taught artist whose earthly envelope returns to the earth, his soul at peace, in harmony with himself, leaving behind him this time in the light of day a luminous work of eight hundred and forty-three paintings [18], extraordinary, authentic, and still mysterious today.
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[1] Primary school certificate issued by the Academy of Lille
[2] Children employed in underground work in the mines of Nord and Pas de Calais
[3] Allan Kardec, whose real name was Hippolyte Léon Denizard Rivali, was born on October 3, 1804 in Lyon. He was a teacher.
[4] The Spirits’ Book, Allan Kardec, 1857
[5] medium from the Latin medium, meaning middle, intermediary
[6] Doctor Eugène Osty, born May 16, 1874. After brilliant studies, he first opened his medical practice in Berry, then moved to Paris in 1921
[7] Léon Denis. After Death. Exposition of the Doctrine of Spirits. Librairie des sciences psychiques, Paris, 1910
[8] Léon Denis, Freemason, friend of Jaurès, would undoubtedly also have contributed a few years later, probably after 1925, to the Masonic initiation of Lesage.
[9] Imposition des mains pour soigner par magnétisme
[10] Metapsychic Review, January 1928, page 11
[11] Lesage is mentioned as a spiritual healer in his military booklet!
[12] Letter to his son dated October 30, 1927
[13] The Cahiers de l’Art Brut n° 3, page 7
[14] Louis Viala, Commander Le Breton, conferences on the astral theme, from 1936 to 1938
[15] Tomb of Menna (Thebes, 17th Dynasty)
[16] Letter to a friend dated January 3, 1946
[17] Visit the Interior of the Earth and by Rectifying you will Find the Hidden Stone
[18] Said Christian Allard, his great-grandson.