weakness faced with the incomprehensible, and it must admit that what it encounters and perceives imposes silence. And if there is no need to quote Epictetus, it is because the following statement —an essential com‑ ment by Cézanne— matters to her (that is a hypoth‑ esis) more than anything else: “Sensation is the basis of everything”. Read it again, please: “... of everything”. Which includes the sensation that he could experience and the one that he offers to arouse —because an art‑ work is a matter of sharing, otherwise it is nothing at all. What sensation do these surfaces inspire? The an‑ swer lies within you. It should not keep you from thinking about these words by Matisse: “All art worthy of the name is re‑ ligious. Be it a creation of lines, or colors: if it is not religious, it does not exist. If it is not religious, it is only a matter of documentary art, anecdotal art…which is no longer art.” Or those by Mark Rothko: “The people who cry in front of my paintings have the same religious experience I had when I painted them.” Do I need to point out that this experience does not need any sacred text just as it does not need any cult or liturgy? Do not misunderstand me. If I insisted on quoting Paul Eluard’s words that have accompanied me for years, it is because Olga de Amaral’s work belongs to those rare people that make it possible to live not only “as dead, as a stone or as a piece of trash.” Kindly accept that if this letter started with a confi‑ dence, it will also end with one. You must be aware like me of the multiplication of screens in recent years. I do not trust them. And I don’t care if you sense that this mistrust introduces some old-fashioned, caustic or bit‑ ter thoughts that can only come from an old schmuck or shmuck or schmo, whichever you prefer. Screens... What can I possibly do when a word carries old mean‑ ings even when its definition has evolved? In the field of optics, the word screen, before standing for a surface on which pictures are shown (its meaning since the 19th century, according to my etymology dictionary), used to designate a board whose function was to protect, to hide, to conceal. Hence the expression “to screen off” . In order to “screen something off”, a “smoke screen” has always managed to do the trick. So how can we not mistrust screens? And how can we not mistrust the images on them? How can we not fear that they could affect the necessary vigilance, acuity and lucidity exercised by looking? The very cynical CEO of a French TV channel once allowed himself to con‑ firm that his job consisted of selling “periods of time of available human brain” to advertisers. “Available” is the modest adjective meaning conditioned, dulled, dazed, stupid. How could looking, worn out by the flurry of broadcasted images, still be capable of the patience re‑ quired by a painting? How could looking, tired by these images that impose immediacy, still be capable of taking its time to see? I cannot be satisfied with the pitiful (and doubtful) consolation which guarantees that, among all the images passing on these screens, the only ones worth watching are those with a great presence on it. That is why, you will surely understand, these sur‑ faces that Olga de Amaral proposes are essential to me. They lead to a necessary contemplation and meditation. And it is here that one can come and see what is “tan‑ gible, real, useful”. Pascal Bonafoux