Category Archives: French culture

Experience is like a comb to a bald man

[Youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMFymZJWaEE]

Roland Topor portrait by Frantz Vaillant of Topor et moi.

Question: I was looking into the love life (cherchez la femme) of Roland Topor (who I consider the finest draftsman of the twentieth century) but could find nothing. Has there been a Topor biography? Yes there is, by  Frantz Vaillant.

Parisian “book hell” open to public

Dessin d’un boudoir () – J. J. Lequeu

Three days ago, I reported that it was Jean-Jacques Lequeu‘s 250th anniversary. My good friend Dominique alerted me that the Parisian “enfer” will open its doors from December until March of next year. This will be a unique opportunity to see books and illustrations which have been hidden from the general public for more than 170 years.

Enfer is French for hell. In this instance it refers to the private case of the French national library. The contents of this library were cataloged by Pascal Pia and Guillaume Apollinaire in the 1913 Les livres de l’Enfer, and in 2007 the “Enfer” will be shown to the public in an exhibition titled Eros au secret. Children are not admitted.

I hope this will be an impetus for other European libraries to do the same. Let the gates be opened of all private cases, Giftschränke and Remota.

View the original French advertisement here and my entry Eros au secret.

Dessins Erotiques – Bertrand

Dessins Erotiques II (1971) – Bertrand

 

While Bertrand is not exactly canonical to me (too Giger-esque for my tastes), he was published by Eric Losfeld (and anything published by Losfeld is of interest to me). Besides, I quite like the grotesque eroticism on the cover above. Tip of the hat to John Coulthart, who appears to be new to me. I’ll try to find more on Bertrand and Hubert Juin, who wrote the text to this volume.

Here is the first series of Dessins Erotiques

Dessins Erotiques (1969) – Bertrand

This one has an introduction by cinema critic Raymond Borde.

La tristesse durera toujours

Auberge Ravoux

The Auberge Ravoux, Auvers-sur-Oise, in 1890

On this day in 1890, Vincent Van Gogh – at the age of 37 – walked into the wheat fields in Auvers-sur-Oise and shot himself in the chest with a revolver. Without realizing that he was fatally wounded, he returned to the Ravoux Inn (pictured above), where he died in his bed two days later. His brother Theo hastened to be at his side and reported his last words as “La tristesse durera toujours” (French for “[the] sadness will last forever”).  After Vincent’s death, Theo was not able to come to terms with the grief of his brother’s absence, and died six months later.