À la bibliotheque 1998

This watercolor painting, titled ‘À la bibliothèque’ or ‘In the Library,’ was made by Aurel Cojan in 1978. Floating amidst this wash of translucent color is a collection of geometric shapes, many resembling open books, scattered like thoughts in the mind. But look closer: do you see the abstracted face, almost hidden within the composition? The face seems to be emerging, as though we are peering into the realm of memory itself. This mirrors the very act of reading in a library, where countless faces and stories come alive in our minds. The book, an ancient symbol, is reconfigured here, as if transformed by the subjective experience of reading. It reminds me of illuminated manuscripts from the Middle Ages, where each page was a portal into another world. In Cojan’s painting, as in those ancient texts, we witness how signs and symbols continuously evolve, inviting us to delve deeper into the collective human experience.