Matisse's poets : critical performance in the artist's book
Theory of art Matisse, Henri,
Bloomsbury Publishing
2020
EISBN 1501326864
Introduction.
Chapter 1. 1 Matisse among the Poets.
Chapter 2. 'Visual Thoughts': Les Poésies de Stéphane Mallarmé.
Chapter 3. Disowning Ulysses.
Chapter 4. The War Book: Pasiphaé, Chant de Minos (Les Crétois).
Chapter 5. Imitation and Innovation: Florilège des Amours de Ronsard.
Chapter 6. Enacting Beauty: Les Fleurs.
Chapter 7. Problematizing Authorship: Les Lettres portugaises.
Chapter 8. Beyond the 'Ritual Space' of the Book: Jazz.
Chapter 9. Old Acquaintances, New Collaborations: Tzara and Reverdy.
Chapter 10. Occupation and Imprisonment: Les Poèmes de Charles d'Orléans.
Chapter 11. Apollinaire Redux.
Chapter 12. Literary Legacies.
Notes.
Bibliography.
Index.
Plate.
Throughout his career, Henri Matisse used imagery as a means of engaging critically with poetry and prose by a diverse range of authors. Kathryn Brown offers a groundbreaking account of Matisse's position in the literary cross-currents of 20th-century France and explores ways in which reading influenced the artist's work in a range of media. This study argues that thelivre d'artistebecame the privileged means by which Matisse enfolded literature into his own idiom and demonstrated the centrality of his aesthetic to modernist debates about authorship and creativity. By tracing the compositional and interpretive choices that Matisse made as a painter, print maker, and reader in the field of book production, this study offers a new theoretical account of visual art's capacity to function as a form of literary criticism and extends debates about the gendering of 20th-century bibliophilia. Brown also demonstrates the importance of Matisse's self-placement in relation to the French literary canon in the charged political climate of the Second World War and its aftermath. Through a combination of archival resources, art history, and literary criticism, this study offers a new interpretation of Matisse's artist's books and will be of interest to art historians, literary scholars, and researchers in book history and modernism.
Chapter 1. 1 Matisse among the Poets.
Chapter 2. 'Visual Thoughts': Les Poésies de Stéphane Mallarmé.
Chapter 3. Disowning Ulysses.
Chapter 4. The War Book: Pasiphaé, Chant de Minos (Les Crétois).
Chapter 5. Imitation and Innovation: Florilège des Amours de Ronsard.
Chapter 6. Enacting Beauty: Les Fleurs.
Chapter 7. Problematizing Authorship: Les Lettres portugaises.
Chapter 8. Beyond the 'Ritual Space' of the Book: Jazz.
Chapter 9. Old Acquaintances, New Collaborations: Tzara and Reverdy.
Chapter 10. Occupation and Imprisonment: Les Poèmes de Charles d'Orléans.
Chapter 11. Apollinaire Redux.
Chapter 12. Literary Legacies.
Notes.
Bibliography.
Index.
Plate.
Throughout his career, Henri Matisse used imagery as a means of engaging critically with poetry and prose by a diverse range of authors. Kathryn Brown offers a groundbreaking account of Matisse's position in the literary cross-currents of 20th-century France and explores ways in which reading influenced the artist's work in a range of media. This study argues that thelivre d'artistebecame the privileged means by which Matisse enfolded literature into his own idiom and demonstrated the centrality of his aesthetic to modernist debates about authorship and creativity. By tracing the compositional and interpretive choices that Matisse made as a painter, print maker, and reader in the field of book production, this study offers a new theoretical account of visual art's capacity to function as a form of literary criticism and extends debates about the gendering of 20th-century bibliophilia. Brown also demonstrates the importance of Matisse's self-placement in relation to the French literary canon in the charged political climate of the Second World War and its aftermath. Through a combination of archival resources, art history, and literary criticism, this study offers a new interpretation of Matisse's artist's books and will be of interest to art historians, literary scholars, and researchers in book history and modernism.
