The author of Que salubre est le vent presents it as an “Ode to Arthur Rimbaud”. In 1988, Jean-Pierre Parmentier followed a number Rimbaudian itineraries. It was not an archaeological journey, and the visible things he photographed were used for their metaphorical value. They operate as a counterpoints to, or echoes of, his reading of poems that he discovered as a teenager, and that have never stopped haunting him as an adult.
But beyond this reference, his photographic work achieves total autonomy. Through its meditation on nature, it raises profound questions on man’s relationship with time, space, life and death.