On holiday in Sceautres with Denis Sloan, Grataloup draws the rock of black basalt on which is built the village and in particular, the house of his friend.

This rock was the place of celebration of pagan cults. The Christian faith kept there erected a calvary. The latter disappeared but iron railings, partly destroyed by lightning, remained in 1975 on the side of the mountain.

Grataloup is inspired by this mineral landscape, made of prisms, faults and other geometric figures, which he has already evoked in other works of this period.

He will thus begin the realization of the fourteen stations of the Way of the Cross, which he will continue until 1985, or ten years. They will be exhibited many times: in 1991, at Chevreuse, on the occasion of the «Musicales de Chevreuse», organized by the mayor of the time, Philippe Dugué; in 1992, at the Saint-Louis de Versailles cathedral; in 2002, at the Chapelle de la Pitié Salpêtrière in Paris; in 2003, at the Trinity Chapel in Lyon; then in 2006, at the Bayer company in Leverkusen (Germany).

«The formal invention of the Way of the Cross»
I now use the folds on large sizes. It is because of the marouflages, the paper on the canvas that the technique of the torn folds appeared. These folds bring a more intense dramatic vision. Thus on the three canvases, where Jesus falls three times, the fold of the first canvas occupies the diagonal. The second is intermediate with the other two. For the third canvas, the fold is almost horizontal. As for colour, it intensifies from dark red to scarlet red. Thus, for each station, the paper will play its role as an “augmentor” of a dramatic impression.”