HERVÉ BONSARD - THE LIVING ALCHEMY OF BAROQUE - FRANCE

At ROYAL GATES ART, we curate art born from the alchemy of craft and spirit. Hervé Bonsard, a French painter, revives the grandeur of Baroque painting by resurrecting forgotten techniques of the old masters and infusing them with a contemporary soul.

His canvases are not just paintings — they are revelations. Light and darkness dance like elemental lovers, merging into symbols, flesh and myth. Bonsard crafts his own brushes, brews his pigments like elixirs, and lays down each stroke as if writing a sacred formula on the canvas of time.

This is not art that follows trends. It transcends them. It is a challenge. A silence that speaks. A movement frozen in eternity. A direct thread from Caravaggio to the 21st century.

At ROYAL GATES, we open the gates to this universe — for those who seek not just paintings, but mysteries encrypted in paint. For those who collect not names, but dreams on canvas.

This is not just art. This is revelation.
HERVÉ BONSARD at ROYAL GATES ART — a collection for the chosen few.

I. Pigments

Everything begins with the earth.
Colors awaken from the ochre veins of Europe or are born in silence, within the artist’s workshop, like alchemical offerings. Each pigment is a preserved particle of light. The palette is limited to ten or twelve tones. But this restraint brings depth.
Here, paint is not mixed. It is summoned. Layer by layer, like a sacred rite. Color is born from memory, from patience, from the knowledge of seventeenth century masters.
II. Oil

At the foundation is the walnut.
Cold-pressed oil, made in a mill hidden among the fields. It is alive. It carries the breath of the land from which the walnuts came.
Blended with natural elements, it reveals alchemical properties. It dries, yet never dies. It polymerizes, yet still breathes. It follows the pigment like breath follows a word.
III. Medium

The medium is a union.
Walnut oil, lavender oil from Provence, and mastic resin from the island of Chios. The resin is gathered by hand, without wounding the Pistacia Lentiscus tree.
This union brings light, depth, and strength to every layer of the painting. It is something that can only be felt in silence.
IV. Brushes

The tool is an extension of the hand.
Each brush is made by hand with one purpose only. To serve the layer. Layer by layer, like chapters of a revelation.
The materials come from the same land as the atelier. Even the brush for varnish is separate. Because varnish does not correct. It completes. It seals. Like a blessing.
V. Drawing

Drawing begins in shadow.
Matte black chalk from Breton ampelite, enriched with alum stone. Highlights are added with lead white and egg white. Sometimes with a single woodcock feather.
This is not a sketch. It is the first breath. A silent gesture that awakens the form.
VI. Ground

Canvas is used only sometimes.
More often it is an oak panel. As the Flemish once used. As those who painted eternity.
Oak carries weight. It carries time. It gives the painting not only a body but also the capacity to hold a soul.
VII. Portrait

A portrait is not an image. It is a return.
It is a bridge between worlds. The distant becomes near. The gone becomes eternal.
Resemblance is not enough.
The artist must call the soul.
He must breathe presence, silence, and mystery into the gaze.
Every portrait is a confession.
Every gaze is a prayer.