Abstract: This essay examines two novels, the main character of which is Constantin Brancusi: The Interview [1944] by Ilarie LITERARY REPRESENTATIONS * Voronca, and The Saint of Montparnasse OF BRANCUSI’S STUDIO [1965] by Peter Neagoe. Although dissimilar in style and genre, the two novels share the same pattern of shaping the artist’s image, grounded on mythical elements that are traceable at some points back in the Renaissance. The studio plays the key role in structuring the narrative of the two novels. Seen as an extension, if not as a double of the sculptor character, the studio is a space of seduction and authority, Irina Cărăbaş malleable and metamorphic, meant to set up the encounter with the artist. Vincent Van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Marcel Duchamp, and Salvador Dali. The popular Keywords: Constantin Brancusi – Ilarie conception of these artists relies on a Voronca – Peter Neagoe – the artist’s number of general types of the exceptional studio – the legend of the artist – fiction person, which, taken together, make up the and art history. imaginary figure of the artist. In each case, Mots-clé : Constantin Brancusi; Ilarie whether we are talking about Van Gogh Voronca ; Peter Neagoe ; le studio de “the saint”, Picasso “the genius”, Duchamp l’artiste ; la légende de l’artiste ; fiction et “the hero”, or Dali “the fool”, the notoriety histoire de l’art. belongs rather to the person and the biography, and the artist’s work plays The mythologies of modernity have almost a decorative role within this kind of carved out for the artist a place at the discourse.1 intersection between inherited stereotypes The myth woven around the figure of and the new status the artist creates for Constantin Brancusi does not necessarily him/herself. The myth of the modern artist fall under any of the aforementioned slides along a groove that runs between the categories, but the mechanisms whereby it public’s desire to explain or at least capture is constructed are to a large extent similar. within discourse the mysterious nature of The artist fostered contradictory interpreta- the artist, and the labour the artist himself tions about himself, allowing himself to be exerts in the service of his own image. In perceived now as a fashionable figure, now the earlier twentieth century in particular, as an aesthete, now as a peasant in the the shaping of the artist’s personality is not middle of Paris.2 These paradoxes are external to his work, but an integral part of believed to be an extension of his artistic it. In keeping with a tradition that goes back strategies. Numerous critics have to Renaissance times, the originality of the emphasised his intention to create a body of work sometimes demands to be confirmed work outside time, which would be by the originality or even eccentricity of the simultaneously archaic and modern. His artist as a person. sculptures made reference to archaic There are modern artists whose myths cultures, be they from the European space are of extremely wide currency, such as or not, while their formal outlook were * This work was supported by a grant of the Romanian National Authority for Scientific Research, CNCS-UEFISCDI, project number PN-II-ID-PCE-2011-3-0200. REV. ROUM. HIST. ART, Série BEAUX-ARTS, TOME XLIX, P. 119–127, BUCAREST, 2012 119 absolutely modern. For example, some on his sculpture, and, on the other, guided critics have considered that the fragmented its reception.7 Consequently, it is not at all character in certain works by Brancusi is surprising that the accounts of those who analogous to the archaeological fragment, visited Brancusi are similar. Nevertheless, which, once removed from its original they provide ample material for research context, loses its primary functions and into the myth that the sculptor contributed meanings. Similar to the mutilated and de- towards shaping and maintaining during a contextualised object, Brancusi’s corporeal considerable part of his artistic career. fragments are supposed to be a substitute There is a separate species of descriptions for a wholeness that is almost impossible to of encounters with Brancusi that transcends situate spatially or, above all, temporally.3 what we might cautiously call the At another level, the extreme polish of his documentary accounts, and becomes an works, their seriality, and the transposition artistic, specifically literary expression in of the same object in different materials are its own right. Among the relatively many features that may be seen as having points writers who dedicated texts to the sculptor, in common with industrial production. It is two stand apart as having made Brancusi no accident that these features are also their main character in a novel. They are responsible for erasing the authorial imprint Ilarie Voronca, who published The that every artistic object must bear in Interview a year before the end of the 8 accordance with tradition. As in the case of Second World War, and Peter Neagoe, Duchamp – and through unexpected whose biographic novel The Saint of Montparnasse was published posthumously convergences of trajectory between the two 9 artists – the impersonality of the work in 1965. Even if they are very different at fosters a mythical image of the artist.4 first glance, the two novels converge Brancusi’s charisma is described by inasmuch as both construct their text numerous contemporary artists, art lovers around the motif of the studio. This motif and persons close to him, as well as by dates from the nineteenth century, when people who had fleeting, chance encounters numerous writers, beginning with Honoré with the sculptor. What connects most such de Balzac and his much commented The Unknown Masterpiece, made the artist a accounts is the space where the encounter character that might, or might not be based took place, the space of the sculptor’s work on a real person.10 par excellence: the studio.5 A total work of The circumstances in which Voronca art, Brancusi’s studio was the stage set and Neagoe met Brancusi are also different. where the sculptor guided his visitors Peter Neagoe belonged to the same according to a ritual established in advance. 6 generation as Brancusi, whom he had met It was a site of seduction in which artist at the School of Fine Arts in Bucharest. and work merged together, leaving the They met again in Paris, where the writer visitor with the impression that he/she was spent a number of years during the inter- experiencing something out of the ordinary. war period. Some critics have remarked Likewise, it was a site of artistic authority, upon a number of biographical similarities: because the interactions that Brancusi running away from home; studying at the conceived for his works, which were School of Fine Arts; leaving Romania and exhibited as genuine installations within the settling in the West. Neagoe emigrated to studio, the aphorisms with which he the United States, where he wrote his adorned his conversation, and not least his literary work and where, somewhat like constant photographing of the studio were Brancusi, he had problems with the all effective strategies whereby he could authorities, being accused of immorality. In monopolise interpretations of his work. His any case, the Brancusi character in his studio functioned as a “proto-white cube,” novel seems to be a kind of porte-parole 11 120 which, on the one hand, conferred autonomy for the writer’s own artistic conception. Voronca’s relationship with Brancusi introduction of a literary motif that was to evolved according to a completely different appear in the novel proper, namely that of pattern. On the one hand, the Romanian the descent into hell: the visit to the studio avant-garde of which Voronca was a of the sculptor character takes the form of a member regarded Brancusi as a hero of ritual of initiation. On the other hand, what modernity and attempted to co-opt him, might be read here is the oppression of war especially during its early years. Here, for and a strange premonition of death: example, is a passage from a letter he Voronca was to commit suicide less than received by Brancusi from M. H. Maxy, the two years later. founder of Integral magazine, in 1926: One significant similarity between the “And we are proud, for far away from us, novels of Neagoe and Voronca is the fact as our spiritual leader, you have remained that both set in motion the same mythic pure throughout all the struggles of all the materials. In both cases, the Brancusi experiments, providing us with a clear character embodies the artist/demiurge, who example for our movement.”12 On the other recreates the world and masters time. The hand, Voronca was part of the very Interview opens by introducing the novel’s numerous group of Romanians in Paris who nameless main character, who is identified visited the sculptor at the recommendation absolutely with his craft (creator/sculptor): of mutual acquaintances. The poet was a “Through a series of rather extraordinary habitué of the studio, and the friendship circumstances I had managed to be between him and Brancusi is mentioned in recommended to the great creator”.14 It is the memoirs of a number of only in the afterword that Brancusi is contemporaries.13 In addition, Brancusi revealed to have been the source for the agreed to provide him with illustrations for construction of the literary character. From a volume of poetry, Plants and Animals, the same romantic conception Peter Neagoe which was published in Paris in 1929. draws other elements with which he endows Fifteen years later, The Interview celebrates his literary character, as to whose real the friendship between Voronca and identity there can be no doubt.