For 15 years, François-Xavier Seren worked on aristocracy and the French bourgeoisie. His pictures were featured in Point de Vue, Vogue Homme, L’Eventail and Dynastie. Here is a glimpse of his journey inside nobility:
“I reacted to the images their lifestyle inspired in me, instinctively, with Balzac in my pocket, like Rubempré wandering about, irreverently, from the duchess’ salon to the villain’s hideout. The upper-crust universe is part zoology and part killing game. The first impression is that of being amongst a curious species cavorting and doing pirouettes, about-faces and smiling coquettishly to attract attention and seduce. Then it quickly becomes clear that their behavior is strictly codified, like a game of chess where any false move is mortal. I was free to move about, simply observing strategy, craftiness and artifact. I was like a mirror without silvering, seemingly neutral, yet an occasional witness to the subject’s surprise discovering his mirror image.
Vogue homme, Dynastie, L’Eventail, and Point de Vue allowed me to continue these invasions of high society and go beyond the mirror image. I established confidence. I discovered a universe I had otherwise ignored, made portraits, true portraits of the “human comedy” I had imagined as an adolescent reading Balzac, Maupassant or Flaubert. Still today aristocrats share an ethic for excellence. My position as privileged observer allowed me to share my vision of this world, selected from the best moments captured behind the viewfinder. The street is fugitive, ephemeral. For the aristocrat, au contraire, there is longevity, continuity, sometimes to an excessive degree. His is a great family, a network where everyone knows everyone, all related to some degree, all abiding by the same reconnaissance codes, imposters are easily recognizable. They belong to an ancestral world of landowners. They have roots. For the aristocrats, durability guarantees immortality. And their codified, ritualized appearance, guarantees this survival, belonging to the elite, this hereditary statute of God’s chosen few. My portraits are not complacent, they are true. Those that believe they reveal ferocity are wrong. I simply captured men’s and women’s expressions as I saw them and appreciated them, without trying to satisfy any particular aesthetic. It remains however that certain spectators have a hard time seeing the reflection in the mirror without tolerance, and yet…”
François-Xavier Seren
