It is by forging
that one becomes a smith —
the blade remembers
L'aiguiseur is a large oil painting. A man in a work jacket and cap bends over a long blade, sharpening it in a precise, repeated gesture, set against flat planes of ochre, beige and grey.
The figure is not a portrait: he is the bearer of a know-how. Sébastien Bonin paints sharpening as a gesture handed down from one generation to the next, one that exists only because it can be repeated.