Paul Claudel’s interest for still life seems directly inspired by the research of the symbolic meaning conveyed, for the believer, by the inanimate objects that it gathers. In the present study, I would like to show that Claudel explains still life not so much like an exegete as like a restless beholder of the painting. The visible surface is less the mirror of invisible than a field of strains that stirs the plain obviousness about the immobility in that genre. Free from knowledge prejudice, his inquisitive writing claims its right for creation. Beyond the Introduction to Dutch painting and Claudel’s work, this study binds the fascination for still life with the ambiguity of its translation by nature morte and suggests that its literary success might well do without hermeneutics.

Paul Claudel’s interest for still life seems directly inspired by the research of the symbolic meaning conveyed, for the believer, by the inanimate objects that it gathers. In the present study, I would like to show that Claudel explains still life not so much like an exegete as like a restless beholder of the painting. The visible surface is less the mirror of invisible than a field of strains that stirs the plain obviousness about the immobility in that genre. Free from knowledge prejudice, his inquisitive writing claims its right for creation. Beyond the Introduction to Dutch painting and Claudel’s work, this study binds the fascination for still life with the ambiguity of its translation by nature morte and suggests that its literary success might well do without hermeneutics.