Actu-Art 

October 2003 "Pax Ominibus" acrylique sur toile 1981 100x100 cm

     Saülo Mercader painted this painting  in 1981 : He was preparing a Master of Art at the Teachers’College , Columbia University in New-York City, in America this promised Land for Democracy , a country of Freedom which finds itself drowned among communitarian groups of all kinds. There is not a republic in America but social strata that live side by side in which some of them bring pressure and a «  lobby » attitude.

    The characters on the painting are all looking towards the same direction. What are they looking at ? 

    This painting strikes my mind in a time when everybody speaks about laicity in France.

    What a wonderful illustration of laicity can be found in this work !

    For Laicity is a universal value.

    Its starting idea is that each human   being lives in two spheres : the private one and the public one and both must not interfere with each other.

    In our private sphere, we stand as human beings with our political, religious, philosophical convictions.  In the public sphere, we are citizens of the Republic, that is to say free and equal in our rights. Our  convictions are not questioned but they do not give  us any privileges in front of the others  nor the  right  to become ostentatious.

    Laicity is built upon the respect towards the others.

    It does not only concern religious  creeds, even if the present debate seems to favour this field. It defends equality of sexes, origins, cultures and habits as well.

    By taking as a principle the equality of all  the citizens in Society , it does not include  communitarian entities and some groups of pressure as being different from the whole body of citizens. Laicity is the cement of the Republic ; it is a universal value because it moderates and makes wiser the administration of a society. 

    All the men on the painting are looking towards the same direction.

    Their differences seem to be erased. The triptych that symbolizes the Republic seems to emerge from their looks :  Freedom because nothing forces them to look towards the same direction, Equality because they are all  at the same level, Brotherhood because they stand side by side and they are looking together. They seem to be lighted by what they are watching. But what are they watching ?

    Probably the universal value which is Laicity, a principle that was missing in so many societies in the past, and is still unfortunately missing  today.

    If Laicity had been applied, how could we have  imagined these so tragical episodes in the history of persecutions, religious wars, discriminations and genocide ?

    If Laicity was applied, how could we justify  the big conflicts  of our times, in particular in Irak and the  Middle East ?

    Saülo , you are aware of  all this, through the story of your life. During all this gruesome period  you lived, you would have probably liked  to watch the Light which tells us that personal interest  is never superior to general interest  and that races do not exist, but only human beings.

                                            Christian Bruon