La Légende de la Vérité

The unique series La Légende de la Vérité by Frédéric Bruly Bouabré is a coherent narrative cycle consisting of 50 original drawings, each approximately 13 x 17 cm, executed in the artist’s unmistakable style—naïve yet deliberate, with a structured layout combining image and handwritten text within a carefully framed composition. As in many of Bouabré’s works, the drawings function as both visual and literary storytelling, each panel acting as a page in a larger philosophical tale. The first part of the series introduces the central narrative: two brothers, one representing truth and the other falsehood, whose destinies unfold through a symbolic journey. The story begins with a divine or cosmic presence—“Dieu de Bogrou”—and a sacred landscape, establishing a mythological framework. The brothers live together in peace, but their differing natures gradually emerge. Truth is depicted as calm, honest, and in harmony with nature, while the lying brother becomes associated with deception, sin, and moral disorder. Bouabré uses simple but powerful imagery—trees, houses, the sun, and human gestures—to communicate complex moral ideas in a universal visual language.

As the story progresses toward the end of the series, the moral contrast between the two brothers becomes decisive. Truth lives modestly, close to nature, and ultimately discovers a tool or instrument—represented visually as a kind of net or vessel—that allows him to reveal what is hidden. The final drawings and texts emphasize that truth, though sometimes hidden in the forest because of its “nudity,” eventually reveals everything and restores order. The last panels shift from narrative imagery to written reflection, where Bouabré presents the philosophical conclusion of the story: truth is the ultimate judge and the force that resolves disputes among people. In La Légende de la Vérité, Bouabré combines folklore, moral teaching, and spiritual philosophy into a sequential visual narrative, demonstrating his unique ability to merge drawing, writing, and storytelling into a form that is at once simple, didactic, and profoundly universal.

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La Légende de la Vérité, 50 original drawings on cardboard, hand signed by Frédéric Bruly Bouabré, 2005