{"id":526,"date":"2017-06-15T11:26:32","date_gmt":"2017-06-15T10:26:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fmirobcn.org\/blog\/?p=526\/"},"modified":"2017-06-20T11:00:21","modified_gmt":"2017-06-20T10:00:21","slug":"526","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fmirobcn.org\/blog\/en\/2017\/06\/15\/526\/","title":{"rendered":"\u00c0 toute \u00e9preuve and the Art of Language"},"content":{"rendered":"

In his Epistle to the Pisos, <\/em>the lyric poet and satirist Horace[1]<\/a> coined the expression \u2018Ut pictura poesis,\u2019 which literally means \u2018as is painting, so is poetry,\u2019 or, in other words, \u2018poetry resembles painting.\u2019 Aside from what Horace may have intended – to establish that poetry was like painting, and thus an imitation of reality, but through the use of words-, the Latin expression per se has a direct, timeless connection with Mir\u00f3\u2019s view: \u2018Je ne fais aucune diff\u00e9rence entre peinture et po\u00e9sie\u2019 (I make no distinction between painting and poetry). On the other hand, if we look up the word poesia<\/em> (poetry) in the Institut d\u2019Estudis Catalans dictionary, we find a definition that would translate as follows: \u2018The art of language that consists of using rhythm, usually that of verse, to express one or several subjects, an idea, a feeling, etc., which each poet strives to endow with a value that is at once unique and universal.\u2019 Therefore, bearing in mind this definition and Mir\u00f3\u2019s statement, we can draw the following conclusion: if poetry is the art of language and Mir\u00f3 made no distinction between painting and poetry, we could say that Mir\u00f3\u2019s painting is also the art of language.<\/p>\n

In 1930, right after Gala had left him, the Surrealist poet Paul \u00c9luard wrote a series of three poems (\u2018L\u2019Univers-solitude\u2019, \u2018Confections\u2019 and \u2018Amoureuses\u2019) gathered in a booklet titled \u00c0 toute \u00e9preuve<\/em> and published by \u00c9ditions Surr\u00e9alistes. It was sixteen pages long and had no images accompanying the text.<\/p>\n

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\u00c0 toute \u00e9preuve<\/em> first edition by \u00c9ditions Surr\u00e9alistes<\/p>\n

Between the \u00c0 toute \u00e9preuve<\/em> from 1930 and the edition showcased in the exhibition, twenty-eight-years had elapsed, and the basic difference between the two publications is the step from a single author – the poet Paul \u00c9luard -to the inclusion of two other people: G\u00e9rald Cramer (the publisher) and Joan Mir\u00f3 (the artist-poet), the perfect m\u00e9nage \u00e0 trois<\/em> for a literary metamorphosis.<\/p>\n

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\u00c9luard, Cramer, Mir\u00f3 – \u00c0 toute \u00e9preuve, more than a book<\/em> exhibition room<\/p>\n

What we see here is a transformed book whose conception, while maintaining the same original poems from 1930, resulted in a new book that became an experience for the senses. And this final outcome is hardly surprising, given that Mir\u00f3, who had already been thinking of a possible collaboration with \u00c9luard, (‘[\u2026] I could publish a collection of colour prints, either engravings, woodcuts or lithographs, like a book or a folder, with a poem by \u00c9luard.\u2019[2]<\/a>), became the essential ingredient in the metamorphosis.<\/p>\n

Mir\u00f3 was a firm believer in artistic collaborations, and the more they let him play with chance and his imagination, the better. There were all sorts of collaborations: with literature, sculpture, ceramics, painting… For example, in the Cadavre Exquis titled Nude<\/em> (1926-27), in the MoMA collection in New York, Joan Mir\u00f3 was the second hand, preceded by Yves Tanguy and followed by Max Morise and Man Ray. Cadavres Exquis was a Surrealist game that consisted of three or four people taking turns to produce a joint drawing. The paper was folded as many times as there were participants, in such a way that each artist could not see what the former had drawn. The final outcome was always fortuitous, unpredictable and, above all, Surrealistic, arising from its participants’ imaginations. They are assemblages of imaginations, in which the initially unrelated pictorial hands come together to create a new, extraordinary form. The imagination that Joan Mir\u00f3 conveys in Nude<\/em> reveals the artist\u2019s poetic drive, and includes words to accompany the drawing: \u00a0[Rouge \/ Jaune \/ Bleu \/ Bleu \/ (comme c\u2019est beau!) \/ mediterran\u00e9e \/ d\u2019ailleurs, \/ je m\u2019en \/ fous \/ atlantique]. The result is a poem-drawing aligned with the peinture-po\u00e8mes<\/em> of the 1920s.<\/p>\n

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Untitled “Cadavre Exquis”<\/a><\/em>. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Purchase, 1935<\/p>\n

\u00c0 toute \u00e9preuve<\/em>, an assemblage of imaginations: \u00c9luard\u2019s, Cramer\u2019s and Mir\u00f3\u2019s. \u00c0 toute \u00e9preuve<\/em>, a poetic assemblage: that of \u00c9luard\u2019s poetry and of Mir\u00f3\u2019s visual (?) poetry. The question mark is intentional. Did Mir\u00f3 make illustrations for \u00c9luard\u2019s poems or visual poetry based on \u00c9luard\u2019s poems?<\/p>\n

The answers are sure to vary depending on one\u2019s point of view, but they all emerge from a common element: experiencing the book.<\/p>\n

In his essay on \u00c0 toute \u00e9preuve<\/em>,[3]<\/a> Christopher Green poses the following question: \u2018[\u2026] Is this a book that demands to be viewed before it is read, or vice versa?\u2019[4]<\/a> The author finds the answer in an analysis provided by Anne Hyde Greet[5]<\/a> in which she states that \u2018Mir\u00f3 responded to his reading of the poems, so reading is primary.\u2019[6]<\/a> Green first mentions that \u2018But the merest glance through the book is enough to see that viewing can actually precede reading, or at least can have parity with it,\u2019[7]<\/a> and then adds, \u2018[\u2026] Mir\u00f3 was responding not primarily to the poems as such but to typography, and finally to his own image-making.\u2019[8]<\/a> He then states that \u2018viewing can actually come before and open up new readings of the poems, can transform them.\u2019[9]<\/a> Clearly Mir\u00f3 does not simply illustrate \u00c9luard\u2019s poems (if we consider illustration as ornamentation, decoration, a visual complement to what is told in the verses of the poem), but rather his pictorial action leads to new poems, making \u00c9luard\u2019s poems change into different ones – a fact that can be confirmed if one first reads \u00c9luard\u2019s poems[10]<\/a> as they were originally conceived in 1930 (with no accompanying images) and then reads the 1958 edition of \u00c0 toute \u00e9preuve <\/em>produced jointly with Cramer and Mir\u00f3. On pages 76 and 77, the verses merge with Mir\u00f3\u2019s drawings in a subtle but absolutely deliberate signal to the readers that they are reading both written and visual poetry at once.<\/p>\n

Mir\u00f3 interprets \u00c9luard\u2019s poems; he makes them his own, internalizes them, thinks about them, feels them and transforms them into images, into visual poems that heighten the voice of \u00c9luard\u2019s soul and imagination but also become the voice of Mir\u00f3\u2019s imagination. These two imaginary worlds complement each other and, aside from a dialogue, become the art of language: they are poetry.<\/p>\n

[1]<\/a> Quintus Horatius Flaccus (65 BC Venusia \u2013 8 BC Rome)<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Mir\u00f3, Joan. [Notes, 1941-42]. Fundaci\u00f3 Joan Mir\u00f3 Archive.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Between the 1930 edition and the one published in 1958 there was a long process comprising many different stages. Christopher Green offers an exquisite analysis and study of the complete book in his recent \u00c9luard, Cramer, Mir\u00f3. \u2018\u00c0 toute \u00e9preuve\u2019, more than a book <\/em>(Mir\u00f3. Documents<\/em>).<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Green, Christopher. \u00c9luard, Cramer, Mir\u00f3. \u2018\u00c0 toute \u00e9preuve\u2019, more than a book<\/em>. Barcelona: Fundaci\u00f3 Joan Mir\u00f3 (Mir\u00f3. Documents<\/em>), 2017, p. 59.<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a> Hyde, Anne. Mir\u00f3, \u00c9luard, and Cramer: \u00c0 toute \u00e9preuve: A Collaboration Between Artist, Poet, and Publisher<\/em>. New York: George Braziller, 1984.<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a> Ibid.<\/em><\/p>\n

[7]<\/a> Green, Christopher. Op. cit.<\/em>, p. 59.<\/p>\n

[8]<\/a> Ibid.,<\/em> p. 60.<\/p>\n

[9]<\/a> Ibid.<\/em><\/p>\n

[10]<\/a> \u2018L\u2019Univers-solitude<\/a>,\u2019 \u2018Confections<\/a>\u2019 and \u2018Amoureuses<\/a>\u2019 (date of access: 28\/04\/2017).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In his Epistle to the Pisos, the lyric poet and satirist Horace[1] coined the expression \u2018Ut pictura poesis,\u2019 which literally means \u2018as is painting, so is poetry,\u2019 or, in other words, \u2018poetry resembles painting.\u2019 Aside from what Horace may have intended – to establish that poetry was like painting, and thus an imitation of reality, … Continue reading \u00c0 toute \u00e9preuve and the Art of Language<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":516,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,96,53,84],"tags":[56,180,182],"class_list":["post-526","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-creation-process","category-exhibitions","category-miro-en","category-miro-chair","tag-archive-en","tag-livre-dartiste","tag-poetry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n\u00c0 toute \u00e9preuve and the Art of Language - Blog Fundaci\u00f3 Joan Mir\u00f3<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.fmirobcn.org\/blog\/en\/2017\/06\/15\/526\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"\u00c0 toute \u00e9preuve and the Art of Language - Blog Fundaci\u00f3 Joan Mir\u00f3\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"In his Epistle to the Pisos, the lyric poet and satirist Horace[1] coined the expression \u2018Ut pictura poesis,\u2019 which literally means \u2018as is painting, so is poetry,\u2019 or, in other words, \u2018poetry resembles painting.\u2019 Aside from what Horace may have intended – to establish that poetry was like painting, and thus an imitation of reality, … Continue reading \u00c0 toute \u00e9preuve and the Art of Language\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.fmirobcn.org\/blog\/en\/2017\/06\/15\/526\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Blog Fundaci\u00f3 Joan Mir\u00f3\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2017-06-15T10:26:32+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2017-06-20T10:00:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.fmirobcn.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/FJM-06824_P.76-77_Gasull.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1886\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1153\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Dolors R. 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