bLOGOS/HA HA: Apollinaire, le regard du poète

David Jones, artist and poet (1895-1974) begins his PREFACE TO THE ANATHEMATA :

'I have made a heap of all that I could find.' (1) So wrote Nennius, or whoever composed the introductory matter to Historia Brittonum. He speaks of an 'inward wound' which was caused by the fear that certain things dear to him 'should be like smoke dissipated'. Further, he says, 'not trusting my own learning, which is none at all, but partly from writings and monuments of the ancient inhabitants of Britain, partly from the annals of the Romans and the chronicles of the sacred fathers, Isidore, Hieronymous, Prosper, Eusebius and from the histories of the Scots and Saxons although our enemies . . . I have lispingly put together this . . . about past transactions, that [this material] might not be trodden under foot'. (2)

(1) The actual words are coacervavi omne quod inveni, and occur in Prologue 2 to the Historia.
(2) Quoted from the translation of Prologue 1. See The Works of Gildas and Nennius, J.A.Giles, London 1841.

15 July 2016

Apollinaire, le regard du poète

Today, in Sydney, the winner of the 2016 Archibald Prize for Portraiture will be announced.

The Archibald Prize is awarded annually to the best portrait, 'preferentially of some man or woman distinguished in art, letters, science or politics, painted by any artist resident in Australasia'. This open competition is judged by the trustees of the Art Gallery of NSW

Meanwhile, in Paris, there are just three more days to visit the exhibition Apollinaire, le regard du poète at the Musée de l’Orangerie.

The exhibition poster features Giorgio de Chirico's "Premonitory portrait of Guillaume Apollinaire", 1914 :

It is almost one hundred years since Guillaume Apollinaire died at thirty-eight in the Spanish flu pandemic of 1918. The many portraits of him painted by his contemporaries - Rousseau, Picasso, de Chirico, Chagall, Man Ray, Metzinger, Picabia, Vlaminck, Larionov, Marie Laurencin, Robert Delaunay, Modigliani, Dali, Duchamp and others - attest to the extraordinary person he must have been.

Picasso and Duchamp with Apollinaire at their headwaters, flowing into the twentieth century.
Amazing!

Pablo Picasso, project for a monument to Apollinaire, 1928

Marcel Duchamp, Apolinere Enameled, 1916-17

One more of the portraits : atop his 1918 obituary portrait GUILLAUME APOLLINAIRE : IRRITABLE POETE Picabia wrote (after a phrase from Horace) “Tu ne mourras pas tout entier” (You will never completely die).