levons
l’ancre
A series of
encrypted paintings
by Jean-Claude Bossel
Current exhibition
painting no. 12
90 x 130 cm
HOLES and
encrypted MESSAGES
The paintings in the LEVONS L’ANCRE series contain messages encrypted using the CODE BACH® process.
Look at the top and bottom of the painting.
The encrypted messages take visual form through holes of four different sizes.
From smallest to largest, the holes represent the digits 0, 1, 2 and 3.
Detail from the top of the painting.
Find the first two groups of three holes in the upper-left corner of the image.
Read each group from top to bottom.
The sequences are 013 and 223.
Detail from the bottom of the painting.
At the top of the image, find the second column of three holes from the right.
Read it from top to bottom.
You should get 012.
ART &
MATHEMATICS
The handwritten notes and the typeset table below show two versions of the same calculations.
These calculations determine where the holes are placed on the canvas as part of the CODE BACH® encryption process.
Some other paintings
in the series
levons l’ancre
The complete series comprises twelve paintings in a range of sizes.
Acrylic on canvas and carbon fibre.
Painted in 2020.
130 x 90 cm
DIGITAL
SETTINGS
100 x 160 cm
80 x 120 cm
DIGITAL
SETTINGS
THE STORY
BEHIND THE TITLE
Jean-Claude Bossel won a copyright case at trial in 2019.
He painted this series the following year and called it LEVONS L’ANCRE (“Let’s weigh anchor”) to mark a fresh start.
One of the messages encrypted in the paintings draws on Charles Baudelaire’s poem Le Voyage from Les Fleurs du Mal.
Il est temps,
Levons l’ancre,
Ce pays nous ennuie.
English translation:
It’s time,
Let’s weigh anchor,
We’re tired of this land.
Résilience
BW
The press reported the verdict under a rather amusing headline: “Un artiste peintre blanchi par la justice” (“A painter cleared by the courts”).
Cleared, certainly. But the French word blanchi also means “whitened”.
Quite the contrary: there was plenty of colour in Jean-Claude Bossel’s fresh start.
Among the works he went on to paint was RÉSILIENCE BW, another series of twelve encrypted paintings.
Click the image to discover a selection of works from the series.
