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JEAN-CLAUDE BOSSEL
PAINTINGS NO. 13 TO 24
PERLES DE VERRE PRODUCTION

PERIOD 2015–2017
PAINTING – MUSIC
MATHEMATICS – FICTION

IN PARTNERSHIP
WITH FGB GALLERY
PRÉVERENGES (SWITZERLAND)

TECHNICAL NOTE
PRELIMINARY REMARK AND NOTICE
BEFORE VIEWING THE PAINTINGS

The images below are presented for informational and documentary purposes.

Nothing can replace the interaction between the viewer’s eye and the artwork placed before it, with or without appropriate lighting, at different distances, whether viewed up close or from afar.

The exact colour of the painting and the impression of material or thickness cannot therefore be guaranteed through these images.

Some images appear relatively faithful to the original, while others are less so. These observations must nevertheless be qualified, as depending on external light conditions or the quality of lighting, the paintings may vary in tone.

TWELVE PAINTINGS
AMONG THE 144 PAINTINGS
OF THE PERLES DE VERRE PRODUCTION

The paintings presented in this section, all created between 2015 and 2017, are grouped into four sets representative of the PERLES DE VERRE production:

• Six paintings from the series DROITES I, DROITES II, CERCLES I and CERCLES II

• Two paintings from the OPUS 28 series

• Two paintings from the CANTORS’ NUMBERS series

• Two paintings from the VIA CRUCIS series

The title PERLES DE VERRE is inspired by the novel The Glass Bead Game (French title: Le Jeu des Perles de verre) by Hermann Hesse, in which the narrator, a historian of the Game, writes in the introduction:

“From the very beginning, this Game was closely linked to music and was generally conducted according to musical or mathematical rules. One, two or three themes were set and developed; they were subject to variations and underwent the same treatment as in a fugue or a concert phrase. A game could, for example, take as its starting point a given astronomical configuration or the theme of a Bach fugue…”

This idea of a starting point derived from the theme of a Bach fugue served as a guiding principle for the creation of the PERLES DE VERRE production: these 144 paintings indeed use, in one way or another, a graphical representation of the famous B-A-C-H motif taken from the unfinished ending of The Art of Fugue by Johann Sebastian Bach.

This motif appears at the end of the final fugue of The Art of Fugue.

SIX PAINTINGS FROM THE SERIES
DROITES I – DROITES II
CERCLES I – CERCLES II

These six paintings present colour variations based on the graphic B-A-C-H motif.

One can observe traces of mathematical equations. These are equations from analytic geometry involving four base points A, B, C and H, whose coordinates translate into a graphical language the four notes B-A-C-H (B-flat, A, C, B-natural) appearing at the end of The Art of Fugue by Johann Sebastian Bach.

As their names indicate, the paintings from the DROITES I and DROITES II series contain line equations related to the calculation of the position of specific points, for example the intersection of characteristic lines of two-dimensional geometry, perpendicular bisectors, angle bisectors, etc., while the paintings from the CERCLES I and CERCLES II series contain equations of circles or calculations related to circles, such as the position of the centre, the calculation of the radius or the determination of tangent equations.

TWO PAINTINGS
FROM THE
OPUS 28 SERIES

The two paintings presented here are part of a series of twelve paintings of identical format, inspired by the String Quartet, Op. 28 by the Austrian composer Anton Webern (1883–1945).

One can observe traces of mathematical writing related to different approaches to the number 12 in mathematics, in direct reference to the principle of dodecaphony (twelve-tone music) and to serial music developed by the composers of the Second Viennese School, in particular Anton Webern.

The twelve-tone series used by Webern for his String Quartet, Op. 28, premiered in 1938, is based on a structuring musical motif of four notes corresponding to the notes B-A-C-H mentioned above in the presentation of the DROITES and CERCLES series. In this respect, the paintings of the OPUS 28 series are also part of the PERLES DE VERRE production.

TWO PAINTINGS
FROM THE
CANTORS’ NUMBERS SERIES

The two paintings presented here, painted in 2017, are part of a set of forty-eight paintings of different colours and formats. Each painting is dedicated to a specific number. The two selected paintings correspond to the numbers 875 and 877. The entire series covers the numbers 846 to 893.

Those familiar with the music of Johann Sebastian Bach will recognise in these numbers the BWV catalogue numbers corresponding to the Preludes and Fugues from the two books of The Well-Tempered Clavier by the German composer, the first “Cantor” referred to in the title of the series, in reference to the nickname given to Bach, the Cantor of Leipzig.

The title of the series also refers to another “Cantor”, less well known to the general public: the mathematician Georg Cantor, whose work on set theory notably demonstrated that there are several forms of infinity in mathematics.

Several allusions to these questions appear in the mathematical inscriptions located at the top and bottom of the paintings. The line of numbers appearing at the top of each work evokes the simplest conception of infinity, known to mathematicians as countable infinity, which consists in counting integers without ever stopping.

This repetitive writing also recalls the approach of the artist Roman Opalka, whose paintings present sequences of numbers continuing from one work to another. In the CANTORS’ NUMBERS series, a similar principle is used: the upper part of the forty-eight paintings forms a continuous sequence of integers that extends from one painting to the next.

The mathematical inscriptions located at the bottom of the paintings evoke another notion studied by Cantor, that of the continuum.

Finally, one can observe in each painting the presence of four coloured rectangles, which symbolise, in a graphical representation familiar to users of musical composition software, different permutations of four notes, here the notes B-A-C-H, at the core of this PERLES DE VERRE production.

TWO PAINTINGS
FROM THE
VIA CRUCIS SERIES

The two paintings presented here are part of the VIA CRUCIS series, composed of twelve works of identical dimensions.

In each of these paintings, one can observe traces of Latin inscriptions located at the top and bottom of the composition. These are two phrases taken from the ritual of the Catholic Mass: GRATIAS AGIMUS TIBI and DONA NOBIS PACEM.

These two liturgical texts were set to music by Johann Sebastian Bach in his Mass in B minor. In this work, they are treated according to an identical musical structure: a large fugue built on an ascending theme, first introduced by the bass voices.

In the paintings presented here, one can also distinguish the presence of the graphic B-A-C-H motif, in the small panel fixed onto the main painting. This motif thus directly links the VIA CRUCIS series to the overall PERLES DE VERRE production, in which it constitutes a recurring structural element.

BACK TO THE PAGE
SELECTION OF
60 PAINTINGS

Click on the button to return to the page presenting the five groups of the selection of sixty paintings created between 2011 and 2026.

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