f today La Chanson de Roland is an old and slightly dusty book lying dormant in our school day memories, somewhere in between La Guerre des Gaules  et Les Fables de La Fontaine, it still evokes inside of us an echo, a resonance both distant and deep. Like L’Iliade et l’Odyssée d’Homère, this epic of Roland’s  has worn the test of time without ever ageing at all, perhaps because it conveys the unwavering human values, the great common depths which artists and writers of pure genius draw upon  in order to produce their immortal works.

uperb and numerous illuminations :
http://lachansonderoland.d-t-x.com/pages/iconographie00.html,
but also paintings, sculptures and stained-glass windows have illustrated through the centuries the prowess of the Franc Knights, but to my knowledge no-one to date has understood the text from La Chanson de Roland to such a degree that they were able to portray it visually, in the same way as the Bayeux tapestry or a cartoon.

have for a long time been intent on the idea of creating these illustrations and it was by re-reading this book and the remarkable translation by Ian Short, who had the knowledge to preserve in the poem its epic spirit, its rhythm and its evocative power, that I made up my mind. It is his text that I chose to illustrate, his words that I have calligraphed, trying to reproduce all the poetry and the passion of the text.     

or two years, I worked on the illustrations, a task as arduous as it was thrilling. After my pencil had covered a distance worthy of a long distance runner, and having filled up a great number of sketch pads, I finally had the pattern I was looking for.

irst I had to define the key moments in the story, which would allow easy reading without the help of long explanatory texts. 74 scenes would follow each other in this way. The first part (38 illustrations) tells of Ganelon’s betrayal which would provoke the attack on the rear guard of Charlemagne’s army by the Saracens, and then the combats and the prowess of Roland and his entourage of Francs. The centre of the Tapestry, like the centre of the poem, illustrates Roland’s death and his ascension into heaven. The second part (34 illustrations) tells of Charlemagne’s revenge and victory.

n paying a visit to Roncevaux, the scene of the tale, I immersed myself in the atmosphere, the landscape and the mudejar architecture. The words took shape: the valiant knight, Roland, his companion Olivier and the Franc warriors and Saracens in their own surroundings. 

y reworking each scene one at a time, I have simplified them, leaving only those essential movements which depict the fundamental moments, whilst conserving, and that’s a totally subjective approach, the emotion of one section or the smile of another.

ach painted scene was digitized and reworked on a computer until the entire work was made up of 23 panels  167 cm x 50 cm. Assembled, the composition is  38.4 square meters in size.

ike the Bayeux tapestry, there is a short calligraphic text alongside the illustrations. It allows one to follow the poems links. Here I would like to thank Ian Short for his priceless advice.

aving completed the piece, there remained one last question: how to present this work? What materials should I use ? A trip to Bayeux allowed me to appreciate, close-up, the famous Tapestry (in reality an embroidery). This little known and little used artistic method is nevertheless quite remarkable in its finesse and precision. At a time when art became intellectual the noble gestures of an embroiderer, slow for sure, almost sensual, could detonate or astonish. However, I still love the idea of marrying together written work, art and craft. On the same level as a painting, embroidery allows depth, the shading off of colours with silk strands or cotton fading to infinity, or the simple vigour of a stroke patiently embroidered.

Dominique Tixhon