CollectionFaith and Hope

Religion is a recurring theme in Charles Menge’s creations. Because of his personal destiny, which saw this fervent believer unable to enter the seminary that would have led him to his profession of faith and his vocation as a man of the Church. From his place of birth in Valais, a mountainous region in the south of Switzerland. It is part of the Alps, a mountainous region that spans several countries in the center of Europe and has always been strongly influenced by the Christian faith, steeped in piety and tradition.
As you travel through the mountains and valleys, you will discover villages, each with its own church elevated by a bell tower that can be seen from far and wide. There are also various places of pilgrimage where strong energies come together, making something happen there.
There are many trails and Stations of the Cross that run through the alpine valleys leading to chapels and mountain peaks where a cross has been planted.
All these elements of the Christian faith that inhabited the painter can be found in several of his paintings. However, on closer inspection, his vision goes beyond this Christian faith. We discover his desire to depict more broadly the meaning of Life, the raison d’être of Humanity on this Earth. He is constantly torn between good and evil, the eternal dichotomy that Man faces all his life, between the reality of existence as it is lived on Earth and the reality as it is dreamed of, desired and imagined. The eternal opposition between the harshness of earthly life and the hope of a paradise in the afterlife. These concepts are fundamental to human beings and their fulfillment. They have always been part of humanity’s beliefs, across all civilizations.