On the Work of Belgian Photographer Michel Chevalier

The Proud and the Brave

The colourful ornithological galeries of photographs by Michel Chevalier and his pictures of landscapes in black and white – like forms of light and dark – couldn’t be more different from one another. Yet, looking through these exquisite albums, I was struck by a certain common demeanour that lends his work a very powerful meaning and identity.
The work of photographer Michel Chevalier shows itself like a silent theatre play, a spectacle built around stillness or movement, filled with natural elements or creatures, of pride, courage and braveness, solitude or togetherness. Little epiphanies of light and dark, of colour, unfolding in the deceptive inertia of a photographic image. Amidst all the beauty the onlooker suspects little signs of struggle in the fierce glances of a small bird or major tumultuousness in a landscape that battles, moves and withers in a fight of light and dark
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Chevalier’s work emanates a clear metaphysical naturalism imbued with the contrasts of which each form of life is made. The portraits of the birds seem to reflect the contemplative nature of the photographer, searching for quietude. Yet, looking at the most beautiful bird-creatures, you cannot but feel that being beautiful requires boldness and bravery and strength. You can as it were sense the proudness of a mountain, a tree, a rock… a bird. In his photographical work, Chevalier associates the quality of beauty with strength, beauty with pride. The exhibited wonders in his photographs show true character, like actors of nature. As if Chevalier insinuates through the boldness of his images that it is the privilege of natural beauty to make a spectacle of itself, to show off. And his viewers applaud him for it. The birds are proud to show themselves from their best side, in full and bright ornaments. The light is at work in his photographs. You can see it form and distill little drops of water, that make for the tiniest sparks of life in these pictures, or gentle, timid flowers on the waterside that provide even more beautified colour and movement. Sometimes the eye is lingering in the detail, but more often it is taken aback by the striking wholeness of what it sees.

An attitude of determination and purpose defines the creatures in his bird photography. It is a trait that wanders through the whole of Chevalier’s work: the purposefulness of nature, its willpower; in a spiritual sense, I’d even dare to speak of some teleological thread that is being woven through the iris of his lens. Nothing is portrayed as if it were the coincidence of a moment. Everything is as it should be: nature is just doing its thing. Water can be the clarity of a mirror or the foamy substance of an inner battle fought by the elements of nature. A bird’s form and colours are reflected, a rock stands proud, a sculptured face of bravery. Sometimes Chevalier portrays the objects on a beach like soldiers standing in line, preparing for some geometrical battle between the elements. Geometry as calm, before the storm unleashes its whirlwind power. A feeling of solitude accompanies the images, as if it were a landscape depicted long after all humankind had disappeared and Chevalier displays it after all form of consciousness has evaporated in the atmosphere… And you can still see the dramatically moving remnants of a spirit making its way out…

Click here for the website of Michel Chevalier

Joke Roelandt, September 2022