Martin Hills introduces an occasional series on some extraordinary works of art that you might all too easily miss.

There are all too few opportunities to see large-scale sculptures. There are, certainly, sculpture parks in many countries that specialise in just such works but they are few and far between. When Tate Modern recently showed a limited retrospective of the works of Anthony Caro, probably Britain’s greatest living sculptor, the biggest subjects were less than 5m high, very small-scale by his standards. Yet there are monumental works freely available to all of us of which comparatively few are even aware.

They are to be found on the French autoroute system, mostly but not invariably, on the aires for both service and recreation. You will not find roadside Rodins or motorway Michelangelos, or even Henry Moores, but works commissioned, mostly from local artists, by the various autoroute concessionaires. In the south, we are particularly fortunate that our two local concessionaires, Autoroutes du Sud de la France (ASF) and Societé des Autoroutes Esterel, Côte d’Azur, Provence, Alpes (ESCOTA), have sponsored far more of these works than any others.

If, like many motorists, you speed past these installations unaware of their existence, you are not altogether to blame. The signalisation is low-key and can easily be overlooked. Anyway, most of us use the autoroutes to get from A to B as quickly as possible and contemplating works of art may not be uppermost in our minds. On the other hand, we are properly advised to take a break every couple of hours for safety’s sake and we may also need to stop for food, drink or other reasons. Knowing where there would also be something worth looking at could make these necessary pauses more interesting.

These features, then, are designed to draw your attention to some of the often spectacular works that you might otherwise miss; to explain what they are all about, not always evident on the sites; and to show how to reach them, bearing in mind that many are accessible from only one direction.

Readers of French News may recognise some of these subjects, from a series I wrote for that magazine a few years ago under the title ARToroute. However, this series will include other examples and probably range more widely.

Sunset
In Provence, the geological wrinkles that follow one another from the sea to the mountains to the north and east give a special character to dawns and sunsets. They are quite unlike those of deserts and plains, where the landscape seems instantly flooded with pink or scarlet light. Here the sun arrives and leaves more slowly, its rays fragmented by the jagged peaks of the outcrops behind which it coyly peeps at morning and spectacularly descend at dusk.

Close to the rocky chain that gives Roquebrune its name, Le Coucher de Soleil is a representation of the sun setting there, with a huge fiery ring, shooting off into rays on the circumference, through which can be seen the range itself. Mounted on a plinth of pinkish stone, it measures three metres in height by 4.8m wide. The sculpture itself, installed in December 1983, is made of juniper wood, stripped of its bark, with the pieces interwoven, glued together and varnished.

The artist, Draguignan-born Alain Girelli, was largely self-taught, but in 1974 worked for a time in the studio of the German Dadaist and surrealist painter Max Ernst, who settled in France in 1953. Girelli specialises in the use of wood and the juniper used here was selected for its resistance to rotting. He is also known for his development of a process by which concrete can be produced with variegated and highly decorative surface colourings. These materials are produced at a concrete works in Draguignan, where he also has a studio, as well as another at his home near Fayence.

Le Coucher de Soleil is constructed on the aire de Jas Pellicot, between exits 37 (Puget-sur-Argens) and 36 (Le Muy) off the westbound carriageway of the A8. On the same stretch of the A8 (as well as from the N7) can be seen another group of sculptures on one of the peaks of the rock chain. The rocher is locally known as that of the Three Crosses. Legend has it that, at the time of Christ’s crucifixion, the rock split open in three places, reflecting the three crosses of the calvary. In the Middle Ages, this became a place of pilgrimage and crosses were erected by each of the faults. Over the years, the crosses succumbed to wind and weather, but they are still to be seen in an 18th century picture in the town museum and a 19th century one in the local church.

In 1999, they were replaced by three new crosses by sculptor Bernard Venet, who designed his 4.75m-high steel versions to emulate famous earlier examples: the 14th century Giotto in Padua, the 15th century Grunewald in Colmar, and the 16th century El Greco now on display in Madrid’s Prado museum.

New Roman Remains
The A8, by a fairly loose definition, could be said to be one of the ‘all roads’ that proverbially lead to Rome. Certainly it traverses much of the Roman Province that gave its name to Provence, with parts of it closely following the lines of the Via Aurelia that led the legions to Marseille and points westwards. Among the towns that the autoroute skirts is Fréjus, whose Roman remains include a theatre and an amphitheatre, both still in occasional use. [For more about Fréjus, see the description in the Excursions series on this website,]

When, in 1996, rising volumes of traffic prompted ESCOTA to enlarge the Fréjus-Saint-Raphaёl toll station, they took the opportunity of commissioning a group of new artworks as part of the development – which was, in itself, unusual, since most such works are displayed in the autoroute aires. Here they stand alongside the access road before and after the tollgates. The artist chosen was the local sculptor Olivier de Rohozinsky and he in turn opted to celebrate the town’s Roman history.

His work is in three sections, which makes for triple value for the visitor (though probably not three for the price of one to ESCOTA). The first represents three sections of the aqueduct built by the Romans to bring water to Fréjus from Mons, 40km away to the north. You can, if you wish, check out the authenticity of Rohozinsky’s design against the real thing, as parts of the actual aqueduct still stand in fields in the outskirts of the town. Next comes a pair of Roman galleys, symbolising the importance of the town as a major port in Roman times – though, like Rye in the UK, for example, it is now well inland from the sea. The galleys are immortalised riding their concrete waves, rising four metres in height and together measure 20m long. Finally, there is a further huge galley, on the area outside the tollgates, 3.8mhigh and 15m in length.

What makes these works particularly attractive is the deceptive simplicity of their lines and the fact that their construction, all in off-white concrete, makes them stand out stunningly against the background of grassed areas and the brownish hills behind them. You don’t have to be on the autoroute to see them, as they are equally clearly visible from the N7, from which the access road leads. If you do come by way of the autoroute, you should leave the A8 at exit 38, Fréjus-Est. Because the sculptures are not on the autoroute proper, they represent a fairly rare instance of being approachable from both east and west.

The Dragon of Draguignan
This was by no means the first example of autoroute art that I had come across, but it is the one that finally prompted me to write about them. It is not just that it is a splendid work in its own right: I think that it was the assured way in which the artist had depicted this most compelling of mythic images in the most improbable material.

The Dragon has great symbolic significance for the town of Draguignan, the senior sous-préfecture of the Var, not least because it gave it is name. Saint Hermentaire, now the town’s patron saint, came to the area towards the end of the fifth century BC to found a hermitage near the settlement of Augiraud. Legend has it that he killed an enormous dragon that had been attacking the local inhabitants.

So grateful were they for this deliverance that the people honoured their benefactor by converting to christianity and renamed their township Dragonian, which became the modern Draguignan.

As might be expected, historians will have no truck with this charming tale but, since Saint Hermentaire was an authentic historic personage, some have come up with theories to explain the (rather limited) known facts. Of these, the most plausible notes that the saint is known to have been responsible for draining the marshes in the area. From this, they deduce that the real threat to the locals was of disease from their miasmic environment

They argue that the story of the removal of a real threat had been corrupted over the centuries into a colourful tale of greater appeal to the popular imagination. However, this version fails to take into account the renaming of the settlement . . . . .

Happily, we are at liberty to prefer the legend of the marauding dragon to still unproven and much less interesting theory of early public works, if we choose.

The Dragon that we can all see, historians included, is the work of Jean Laugier, an artist who has adopted the name of Beppo. Born in Aix-en-Provence, he studied in Toulon and Paris before settling in Draguignan where he still lives and works. 

Beppo’s preferred materials are stone, marble and metals particularly the stainless steel used in his work. Almost all his works are monumental in scale and, despite the problems this must impose, has exhibited widely both in France and abroad.

Installed in 1985, the Dragon of Draguignan is a striking construction in highly-polished stainless steel. It is five metres high and seven long. It is to be found in the Aire de Canaver, an aire de service off the westbound carriageway of the A8 between Exit 37 Fréjus and Exit 36 Le Muy.

The Portal of the Sun
ASF calls the southern part of the A7 the Autoroute du Soleil and it is undoubtedly the Provençal sun that is the magnet which draws so many motorists along that route. Hence the choice of that motif for the gigantic sculpture near Montélimar seems almost inevitable.

The work, commissioned from Ivan Avoscan, presents a highly successful marriage of art, both ancient and modern, with technology and architecture. The sun itself is represented by a huge disc, eight metres high, built from pink Porrino granite. At a remove of several metres is a smaller square wall of the same material, pierced by a circular hole that seems to focus the actual sun’s rays on to the disc. 

Both sections are approached by steps carved into an inclined cylinder, which has the effect of suggesting the shadow of the empty circle, as if the intention was to welcome both sunlight and sky. The area between wall and disc is floored with a mosaic made up of paving stones from the nearby Creuse river.

Sculptor Avoscan acknowledges the influence on this work of Celtic, Aztec and even Druidic art. The Portal of the Sun echoes the ways in which the early artists of those cultures, for all of whom the sun had spiritual or religious significance, attempted to relate their conceptions of the vastness of the universe to human life on Earth.

Where, do you ask, does the technology come in? Very importantly, because precision technology was essential in polishing, glazing, assembling and positioning the 25-tonne granite blocks that were the building bricks for the structure, and in the exact distancing and placing of the main element to achieve the artist’s vision.

Photos courtesy of
Phototheque Escota - Yannich Collet
Martin Hills