Le sommet des philosophes is part of the “traces” project by herman de vries*. It is one of the works in the Art en montagne collection developed by the Musée Gassendi and the CAIRN Centre d’art.
herman de vries has been engraving a series of inscriptions at various locations in the Haute-Provence Geopark since 2001. These are formulas, words or symbols inscribed on rocks, on mountainsides, on the banks of torrents or in abandoned villages. Here, on a hillside in Les Dourbes (20 km south-east of Digne), the artist has engraved the names of twelve authors to whom he wished to pay a special tribute at this very spot.
These inscriptions revolve around a pivot stone bearing the word “reau! This is what unites the authors mentioned, beyond the differences in time, culture and practice: their shared attachment to concrete reality, the world given to us by our senses, the present of existence, the experience of the beauty of nature.
*We respect the author’s wish not to write his name in capital letters.
