David Balade
David Balade (1972-present) is a painter, illustrator and author based in Saint Lormel in Brittany, France. For around twenty years, his illustration work has explored texts from different spiritual traditions around the world: Pop Wuh, at the foundation of Maya Quiché mythology, The Wooing of Etaine, from medieval Irish literature, the Mantiq-ut-Tayr by Attar and the Tale of the Merchant and the Parrot by Rumi, classics of the Sufi mystical background, the Taketori Monogatari or Tale of the Bamboo Cutter, a traditional Japanese story, and more recently, the enigmatic Song of Songs from the Old Testament. He is best known to the French public for a collection of books devoted to Celtic motifs and symbols that he has been editing since 2003 with Editions Ouest-France. Since 2016, David Balade has been interested in the character of the Green Knight, which he assimilates to the archetype of the Green Man. He also links it to the figurations of leafy masks in the Celtic arts of antiquity (Balade, 2024). In 2021, his illustrations were brought together in a children's album published by Editions Ouest-France, with a French adaptation of the poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by Claudine Glot.​​​​​​​​​
In the article “Les Renaissances de Gauvain”, Claire Vial, doctor in medieval English literature, describes the illustration where Gawain meets the gaze of the Green Knight after his decapitation:
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What does the painter tell us about these representations of the Green Man / Green Knight? The face-to-face that we have just commented upon is the second representation of the character in David Balade's act of creation, the first being the Green Man of the previous painting. This wavering between the two representations - Man or Knight - is explained by the fact that the artist claims a link which is not necessarily literal with the text: the exploration of Gawain and Gawain within a social circle, in a sense, came as a second step in his (re)creation. It is therefore a deliberately remodeled scene, which for the painter highlights and “symbolizes this moment of exchange”, the fundamental questioning of the relationship between the painting and the spectator. According to D. Balade, the scene depicted questions, such as “what happens when we look at a painting: the painting looks at what happens in us when we look at it.”
Furthermore, the painter perceives the Green Knight “as a plant-man, who survives without any kind of anxiety. The head is cut like a flower’s and that's not a problem. The scene calls into question the human way of approaching life, the inner experience.” The Green Man is “a force of nature, which also looks at the depths of the human beings and the way in which they consider their place in nature. The Green Man questions the exchange between God and man, between nature and man” (Vial, 2021).
​David Balade's illustrations, produced with a mixed technique (ink, watercolor, pastel, metallic pigments) on paper, are inspired by the aesthetics of "international Gothic": in the vein of Simone Martini, with golden backgrounds, bright and refined colors, and a more realistic representation of supple and slender bodies, sometimes mixed with Japanese-inspired motifs typical of the illustrator's favorite ornamental repertoire.​​​​​​​​​​​​​
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References
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Balade, D. (2024). L’Art des Celtes. Rennes : Editions Ouest-France.
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Glot, C. Balade, D. (2020). Sire Gauvain et le Chevalier vert. Rennes : Editions Ouest-France.
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Lamour,P. Balade, D. (2019-2023). Symboles des Celtes. Rennes : Editions Ouest-France.
Vial, C. (2021), ‘Renaissances de Gauvain’, p.131-160. Actes de l’Atelier Moyen-Âge du congrès de la Société des Anglicistes de l’Enseignement Supérieur de Tours : RENAISSANCE(S), ISSN, 0240-8805.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​
Figure 2: Les cinq perfections bis by David Balade (2020).Courtesy of the artist. Reproduced by permission of Editions Ouest-France (2020). All rights reserved.
Figure 3: Connais toi toi-même by David Balade (2020).Courtesy of the artist. Reproduced by permission of Editions Ouest-France (2020). All rights reserved.
Figure 4: Couverture Sire Gauvain et le Chevalier Vert 2021 by David Balade (2020).Courtesy of the artist. Reproduced by permission of Editions Ouest-France (2020). All rights reserved.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by David Balade, courtesy of the artist. Reproduced by permission of Editions Ouest-France (2020). All rights reserved.