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Around 2023, the panels were removed because the Mahhsa museum, which is linked to the Centre Hospitalier Saint-Anne, intended to restore them to their former state. This is explained in more detail on the museum's website (see documentation), which also mentions the name of the creator of the inscriptions on the floor, namely Jean Crampilh-Broucaret, mostly adressed as Jeannot.
The story
Jeannot was born in 1939 in a small community in the former Béarn department, in the south of France, where his parents owned a (farm)house on a terrain of some 40 hectares. As a young man, he may have been a nice, sociable person, but problems arose when in 1959 he had to deal with his fathers suicide.
His mother, Jeannot and one of his sisters continued to live in the house, and the small family gradually became more and more isolated.
Jeannot showed paranoid behavior. Admission in a psychiatric hospital was imposed, but he resisted so violently that authorities did not further intervene. When the mother died in 1971, permission was granted to bury her in the house, "under the staircase", as is reported in articles about Jeannot.
The next months Jeannot wrote down a text on the wooden floor of the living room. With a hand drill he made small holes which he connected with lines cut out with a gouge or a knife, in this way giving shape to the text in capital. Carving eighty lines of text must have entailed many months of intensive labor.
Soon after completing this job, Jeannot died; maybe he had starved himself to death (1972). Together with his mother he was buried in the local cemetery
The sister continued living in the house, alone, isolated, hardly coming outside. She was found dead in 1993.
The house was sold. The brocanteur who dealt with the furniture, noticed the inscriptions on the floor and informed someone of his family, named dr Guy Roux, a psychiatrist interested in art brut. Dr Roux became the owner of the floor in exchange for a brand new floor he paid the new owner of the house. Later he sold it to the pharmaceutical company Bristol Meyer Squib.
Expositions of the floor
The plancher for the first time was exposed in 2000 during an international psychiatric congress in Paris, as part of an exposition entitled 50 ans d´expression en milieu psychiatrique (50 years of expression in the psychiatric setting).
Jeannot was born in 1939 in a small community in the former Béarn department, in the south of France, where his parents owned a (farm)house on a terrain of some 40 hectares. As a young man, he may have been a nice, sociable person, but problems arose when in 1959 he had to deal with his fathers suicide.
His mother, Jeannot and one of his sisters continued to live in the house, and the small family gradually became more and more isolated.
Jeannot showed paranoid behavior. Admission in a psychiatric hospital was imposed, but he resisted so violently that authorities did not further intervene. When the mother died in 1971, permission was granted to bury her in the house, "under the staircase", as is reported in articles about Jeannot.
The next months Jeannot wrote down a text on the wooden floor of the living room. With a hand drill he made small holes which he connected with lines cut out with a gouge or a knife, in this way giving shape to the text in capital. Carving eighty lines of text must have entailed many months of intensive labor.
Soon after completing this job, Jeannot died; maybe he had starved himself to death (1972). Together with his mother he was buried in the local cemetery
The sister continued living in the house, alone, isolated, hardly coming outside. She was found dead in 1993.
The house was sold. The brocanteur who dealt with the furniture, noticed the inscriptions on the floor and informed someone of his family, named dr Guy Roux, a psychiatrist interested in art brut. Dr Roux became the owner of the floor in exchange for a brand new floor he paid the new owner of the house. Later he sold it to the pharmaceutical company Bristol Meyer Squib.
Expositions of the floor
The plancher for the first time was exposed in 2000 during an international psychiatric congress in Paris, as part of an exposition entitled 50 ans d´expression en milieu psychiatrique (50 years of expression in the psychiatric setting).
Some years later the plancher was exposed in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, which gave rise to a heated public debate about the question if it acceptable to present as a work of art what someone in great psychic need gave expression to.
Due also to the cooperation of Dr Jean Pierre Olié, professor of psychiatry and chief psychiatrist of Ste Anne Hospital, it was arranged that the floor, cut in three parts, from 2007 on was on display at the entrance of a department of the hospital in the rue Cabanis.
There were plans to make the hospital more open by renovating the main entrance and there were ideas to situate the carved floor there, .but these did not produce any results in the short term.
Due also to the cooperation of Dr Jean Pierre Olié, professor of psychiatry and chief psychiatrist of Ste Anne Hospital, it was arranged that the floor, cut in three parts, from 2007 on was on display at the entrance of a department of the hospital in the rue Cabanis.
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Google Streetview shows that in July 2022 the panels with the text were still located along the rue Cabanis, but in April 2024 they were no longer there.
Exposition of the renovated floor from September 2024
As said above, the Mahhsa museum has taken care of a renovation of the floor with inscriptions. It will be exhibited from September 2024 to April 27, 2025.
The museum is also publishing a book in which an attempt is made to restore the authenticity of the creation by analyzing its history and the social context of Jeannot's family and by examining which analyses have been made in the past thirty years with regard to the creation.
The text
The text as written on the floor can be found in French on the website Tryangle. When in May 2009 I wrote the first version of this post, I had not yet found an English translation, so I made one myself, that can be read in my website OEE texts.
The text as written on the floor can be found in French on the website Tryangle. When in May 2009 I wrote the first version of this post, I had not yet found an English translation, so I made one myself, that can be read in my website OEE texts.
Very briefly summarized, the message of the text is that religion is the cause of evil in society, and that the church uses electronic devices to influence the minds of men.
Documentation
Documentation
* Website of the MAHHSA Museum
* Wikipedia
* Dr Guy Roux, Françoise Stijepovic (photo's), Histoire du plancher de Jeannot, drame de la terre ou puzzle de la tragédie, Éditions Encre et Lumière, 2005.
* Dr Guy Roux, Françoise Stijepovic (photo's), Histoire du plancher de Jeannot, drame de la terre ou puzzle de la tragédie, Éditions Encre et Lumière, 2005.
first published May 2009, last revised September 2025
Le plancher de Jeannot
originally located in a house in an unknown community in the dept Pyrénées-Atlantique, region Nouvelle Aquitaine, France
(during many years exposed along a street outside the hospital,
originally located in a house in an unknown community in the dept Pyrénées-Atlantique, region Nouvelle Aquitaine, France
(during many years exposed along a street outside the hospital,
removed around 2023 to be exposed in the Mahhsa museum)
Musée MAHHSA
This is a hugely moving and interesting story. Unfortunately I can't open the link with the english translation.. I'd love to get an idea as to what was written... thank you for a brilliant post!
ReplyDeleteDon't you see thet the "frames" are a prison?
ReplyDeleteFree Jeannot!
In french: cette installation est une horreur.
Ani
Thanks Watercats, I noticed the link to the english text does not work. Will see how I can find a solution.
ReplyDeleteBest, Henk
Hello Ani, Yss I see what you mean, and I agree. I tried to write this note in a non-partisan way,but probably too sophisticated with regard to the way the creation is presented....
ReplyDeleteQuite moving indeed. What make somebody to isolate himself from world? Certainly was Jeannot a very sensitive fragile soul (and not that obtuse classifications the psychiatrist use to sort the people with)Certainly something crumbled down within him and the world began to be a hostile place of which he needed to protect from.
ReplyDeleteSometimes when not in the right place and when not receiving at least a little part of that what you expected from life, the little trifle from the world may start to overpass you, and is your own imagination the shelter in where you wish to remain, safe from the outer threats. All threats may be real in everyone´s single experience, is a matter of focus and yes, tolerance. Men years can be centuries for the ants.
Hi Henk !
ReplyDeleteThis is an absolutely amazing story that I'd certainly never heard... don't know how you dig up some of these subjects, but I'm glad to be following your blog, for sure ! Will have to make a detour to Sainte Anne, that's not far from here. Incredible how he carved all those letters...
Hi Owen,
ReplyDeleteIn case you make a detour to Saint Anne's, I wonder what youre opinion is about the way the work is presented.