La Vision Solaire autour de l’Humanité

This is a remarkable and coherent series by Frédéric Bruly Bouabré, titled “La Vision Solaire autour de l’Humanité” (“The Solar Vision around Humanity”), all executed in July 1988. The fact that the drawings are dated consecutively (6–12 July) strongly suggests that this is not a loose grouping, but a deliberate conceptual sequence—a meditation developed over several days.

At the center of each work stands a simplified human figure, arms extended in a cruciform or Vitruvian-like pose, surrounded by seven colored circles. These circles likely represent a symbolic system—possibly cosmic forces, planetary bodies, or spiritual energies—that revolve around or define human existence. Bouabré often worked with systems of knowledge, and here he seems to propose a universal cosmology, where humanity is both central and interconnected with a larger, ordered universe.

What makes this series particularly compelling is the variation: each drawing is associated with a different color designation—blanche (white), bleue (blue), verte (green), jaune (yellow), noire (black), violette (violet)—and the central figure subtly changes in tone, gender, or physical detail. These shifts suggest that Bouabré is exploring humanity through multiple states or identities, perhaps reflecting diversity, spiritual conditions, or symbolic “types” of being. The repetition of the composition reinforces the idea of a system, while the variations introduce individuality within universality.

Formally, the works are classic Bouabré: modest in scale, executed in colored pencil and ink on card, framed by handwritten text and decorative borders. Yet conceptually, they are expansive. This series reflects his lifelong ambition to catalogue and transmit knowledge—not just cultural or linguistic (as in his Bété alphabet), but cosmic and philosophical.

In essence, “La Vision Solaire autour de l’Humanité” reads as a kind of personal cosmogram: a visual philosophy in which the human being is positioned at the center of a harmonious, color-coded universe—at once individual, symbolic, and universal.

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La Vision Solaire autour de l’Humanité, 7 original drawings, 30 x 30 cm, hand signed by Frédéric Bruly Bouabré, 1988

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