11.02.2023-12.02.2023
WHEN A POET MEETS A PAINTER
"My dear Lesclide,
It's not a short story I want to bring you, but a little poem of just two hundred lines, with Manet's etchings to match*. This poem, which is called Le Fleuve (The River), tells how water falls from the sky or condenses on snowy peaks, then goes by various convolutions to the sea [ ... ]".
This is what Charles Cros wrote to his publisher Charles Lesclide in 1872, telling him of his innovative idea to have one of his poems illustrated and published by an artist. From this project, germinating around the tables of the Café Guerbois or those of the Nouvelle Athènes, was born the formula that created so many 20th-century masterpieces: the illustrated book or livre d'artiste.
Through a fragmentary and subjective selection of some forty works, published between 1893, Le Voyage d'Urien by André Gide, illustrated by Maurice Denis and Gouttes d'ombres sur la peau des jours by Guy Marester illustrated by Théo Tobiasse, in 1988, Librairie L'Exemplaire is pleased to present its new exhibition where text and illustration become one.n ne font qu’un.
Image
Yves TANGUY, Benjamin PÉRET
Dormir Dormir dans les pierres, 1927
Rehaussé à la gouache