César Malfi is fascinated by Antiquity, just as some Renaissance men, humanist princes and artists, were. When he discovered the Galerie François 1er at the Château de Fontainebleau at the end of last year, it was obviously an aesthetic and intellectual shock. After all, it was here that Renaissance art was first brought to France in the 1530s by two famous Italian artists, Rosso Fiorentino and Le Primatice, who were invited to Fontainebleau by King François 1er to decorate the gallery that bears his name.

Faced with this "visual song where political allegory, mythology, sensuality and the quest for eternity intersect", César Malfi decided to "create a dialogue between the gestures of yesterday and the impulses of today", and to "revive", once again, "this gallery through contemporary art" by taking "a fresh look at a well-known work".

For his new exhibition in Bellifontaine, César Malfi proposes a series of paintings directly inspired by the Renaissance spirit that reigns in the Galerie François 1er: nine allegorical canvases dedicated to nine cardinal values, the first and perhaps most important of which is what the ancient Romans called the numen, i.e. the Active Will (the other eight being Grace, Thought, Love, Memory, Passion, Dream, Life and Metamorphosis).
César Malfi describes his "nine contemporary muses of the Château de Fontainebleau" as "nine sensitive presences, rooted in our times but nourished by this humanist heritage".