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 , 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 . 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 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. The Brancusi Brancusi and attempts to reinforce it with character works in solitude, defying material an existential dimension by means of hardships, without paying any attention to literature: according to the preface, the the artistic trends of the time, and in spite of novel is “the encounter between a poet and being misunderstood by his contemporaries. a sculptor.” Because they share the same Neagoe dwells in particular upon Brancusi’s visionary qualities, the Poet and the apprenticeship years and the period before Sculptor are privileged interlocutors for one he established his sculptural repertoire. For another. “My sympathy lies only with the this reason, the character is shown searching poets,” says the Brancusi character at one persistently for the essential form that will point in the novel. “They alone realise become a new point of departure for sometimes that routine and the world of sculpture. comfort and conformism prevents one from Another element may be added to the list seeing, hearing and feeling the most of themes the two novels have in common: astonishing aspects of the universe.” The the integration of what was soon to become fact that the novel was written and an established way of commenting on the published during a period of crisis – the work of Brancusi, which was also later Second World War had not yet ended – embraced by a branch of professional might also be significant to a certain interpretation. This direction is founded on degree. In the preface the author argues that the supposition that Brancusi’s artistic only the experience of death allows any strategy was aimed at transcending the understanding of the book’s contents. On appearances of the sensible world and the one hand, this might refer to the seeking a spiritual principle.15 121

Having pointed out the intersections Giorgio Vasari, can be found in a novel between the two novels, I shall now analyse published in New York in 1965. Although each in turn, tracing the ways in which the some features of the figure of the artist does Brancusi myth participates in the not seem to have undergone any major construction of the main characters. Above changes in the realm of the imaginary, all, this analysis will in both cases aim to Neagoe introduces also modern elements shed light on the image of the studio and such as the revolution in both art life, the the way in which it structures the text. spiritual meaning of his art, the marginality In The Saint of Montparnasse, Peter of the artist which pairs with a later Neagoe chooses the studio as the main axis acknowledgement of the work, and the of the narrative structure. The history of the Boheme way of life. They were not at all a studio is identical to that of the sculptor literary concoction, but a reflection of a himself. Just as in the studio multiple stages new image of the artist shared, in different of artistic production exist together formats and degrees, by popular culture and simultaneously, so too the history of the by art historical writing. For both, the studio marks the stages of the artist’s features mentioned above serve as evidence career. Moreover, each hypostasis of the of modernity. studio contains within it all the others. The second chapter of The Saint of Neagoe chooses the biography for his Montparnasse (Workshop in the Woods) account on Brancusi in which he melts introduces the first such unit: the historical facts, art historical interpretations, precocious child tries out his talents by and fictional events or persons. Ever since himself and thanks to a chance encounter the Vasari, in the artist’s biography, fiction they are recognised, which opens a new and history have been nested within biographical stage.19 At the age of thirteen eachother.16 Following Hayden White, Constantin has his first workshop, where, Philip Sohm considers their coexistence as chance would have it, he is visited by impossible to disentangle: “the migration of Mihail Romanov, probably an imaginary fact into fiction is a necessary and even a character, who admires his work and desirable of writing history, […] all obtains a place for him at the Arts and biography constructs a text fron other Crafts School in Craiova. On the other text.”17 In Neagoe’s novel we are also hand, to his family, the workshop is a dealing with what Ernst Kris and Otto Kurz strange, useless place, “neither house nor have called “the legend of the artist”.18 This stable,” in which Brancusi makes “queer might ideally consist of all the recurrent toys” and “amusing pieces”. This first motifs to be found in the biographical texts studio seems to have had the same dedicated to artists, and which provide functions and qualities that were later to be them with a kind of structure. The “legend” attributed to the Parisian studio on the sets in motion a circuit, as it reflects the Impasse Ronsin, the one with which reception of the artistic personality, on the Brancusi was to be identified. Here, it is a one hand, and nourishes it, on the other. mysterious place for withdrawal and The authors make an inventory of these meditation, “a thing indefinable,”20 but recurrences and point to their possible which does not exclude other people. It is a ancient sources, and they propose a host of space that is already prepared to receive hypotheses about their recurrence. They and potentiate essential encounters. might be understood as mythemes that The Paris studio is almost a organise and configure the myth of the reconstruction of the workshop in the artist. It might be surprising that the woods. As in the case of the first studio, majority of the mythic units investigated by what is emphasised here is the fact that Kris and Kurz, especially those to be found each object bears the artist’s imprint: “He 122 in ancient authors, and in the lives of [a visitor] was almost blinded by the

luminosity of the room, was enhanced by own mind, such as no other sculptor ha the whitewash on the walls. The decorated sever conceived. He was called and he was peasant spreads on the table, lounge, and chosen.”24 chests lent brilliant touches of colour, and The studio seems to be an autonomous brought the world of peasant handicraft to a structure capable of protecting art from all corner of Paris.”21 There is a symbiosis kinds of perversion, and perhaps this is why between studio and artist, which, once it endures in time and history. The established, will be impossible to dissolve: upheavals of war, for example, have no “A sculptor has to build his own world impact upon the hermetically enclosed around himself the way a crustacean builds space. The last chapter in the novel is also a snug shell.”22 The objects in the studio, dedicated to the studio. Brancusi had among which the sculptures seem to already become an artist whose merits were occupy, at least for the moment, a marginal unanimously acknowledged. Here, we are place, form a whole whose effect is magical dealing with a “classic” description: the and at the same time strange. As Peter studio is invaded by the white light Neagoe was interested in the civilization of mentioned by every visitor. The light the Romanian village, a major theme in his causes the sculptures to vibrate and writing, he exaggerates the peasant side of animates the space, but it also becomes a Brancusi here as well as in other contexts. metaphor of the mysterious and singular At the same time, this element guarantees, life of the studio. What recurs here with in a way, other features of the character and greater force than in other episodes of the his artistic work: sincerity, simplicity and novel is a version of the old topos of the spirituality. The contrast with the studio of artist who rivals and even surpasses nature, Rodin, the only other studio mentioned in as the works in the studio “find no equal in the novel, thus becomes more powerful and nature … but rather they are the fruit of the significant: manual labour stands in sculptor’s imagination.”25 opposition to the almost industrialised The parallel the writer constructs world of the studio-factory. between Brancusi’s life and the history of The novel’s narrative is guided by the his studio is pursued to the very end of the destiny of Brancusi as an absolute novel. The life of the studio ends at the innovator in art. The key moments that are same time as that of the sculptor, and the described at certain points in the narrative natural consequence of this is the represent leaps, which leave behind them disappearance of the vivifying light. For the formula after formula, whether it be first time, the studio seems to have entered academicism or the art of Rodin. As each history and begins to reveal signs of the “formula” completes its pedagogic passage of time: “Dust had already begun function, it disappears without trace. The to settle on the studio. Soon it would take refusal to work based on ideas or practices possession of the place.”26 This change of configured by others takes concrete form in status no longer interests the writer, and so the radical decision to gut his own studio: the studio as legacy of Brancusi is not “I’ll clean the place thoroughly. It’s mentioned, although Neagoe was probably important that the studio be perfectly aware that it had been donated to the clean.”23 It is only now that the studio French State on the condition that it be achieves an original mythical state, and is preserved in the state in which the sculptor consequently ready to receive the new had left it. sculpture: “Without the clutter of the old Despite a number of features shared by form, the studio looked empty, but for The Saint of Montparnasse and The Constantin it was a living, vital emptiness Interview, the latter is shaped by the poetic that called him to work, to fill the temperament of its author. Voronca’s novel emptiness with forms grown out from his is rather a series of prose poems arranged 123

according to a narrative thread. The trigger texts, from poetry to interviews, and is the visit paid by the narrator, in the guise reproductions published in its journals. The of a reporter, to the studio of “the Great issue of Contimporanul30 dedicated to Sculptor”. Significantly, the studio is Brancusi is conclusive in this respect, and situated on a secret island accessible only to the texts contained therein reveal the the initiated. Solitude has always been influence of the myth of the artist, taken as a guarantor of the artist’s perpetuated by the avant-garde. In the uniqueness, and Voronca takes care to fix article written by for the issue this co-ordinate in the very first pages of in question one can find the same ideas that the novel. The creator or sculptor Voronca would later include in The “fashioned his works in nature herself,” Interview. It is not at all possible to while living in a modern, effervescent establish any direct link between Marcel metropolis, which is not named (although it Janco and Ilarie Voronca, not only because is recognisably Paris), but presented as the of the long period of time that separates the centre of the art world: “the artists’ publication of the two texts (almost twenty inventions haloed the buildings, boulevards years), but also because much of what and parks.”27 Just as the novel, published in Janco writes in his article can be encountered 1944, contains thematic and linguistic in countless other commentaries on echoes of Voronca’s surrealist writings Brancusi. Modesty, simplicity, wisdom, from his avant-garde period in Romania, so austerity, originality, and audacity are the too it is possible to find relationships features that characterise the artist and his between the image of Brancusi that it work for both Janco and Voronca. But it is constructs and the way in which the not here that the two texts intersect most sculptor was perceived by the avant-garde meaningfully. Although Janco’s article of the 1920s. cannot be regarded as literature, it is Brancusi’s correspondence confirms that possible to detect a way of referring to almost all the members of the Romanian Brancusi that draws upon poetic rather than avant-garde met him, but with the critical means. Undoubtedly, such means exception of that with Miliţa Petraşcu it better serve the article’s intention to praise does not provide very many clues as to the Brancusi. The passage in which he relations between them. A letter signed by mentions the sculptor’s studio refers to the Marcel Janco, a former member of the same common stock of ideas upon which Cabaret Voltaire, and poet Voronca would later draw: “His studio is a invites Brancusi to send works to the consequence of the natural laboratory. In international exhibition organised by avant- the middle of it stands the enchanter like a garde journal Contimporanul in 1924. The giant.”31 text associates Brancusi with the avant- At the end of the 1920s, poet and garde: “An exhibition of Cubists, philosopher , who had Suprematists and Constructivists is emigrated to France but still maintained inconceivable without you.”28 Although close links with the avant-garde in Brancusi was to send only a few Romania, published a substantial article photographs, the presence of his works in about Brancusi in Cahiers de l’étoile. The the planned exhibition was by no means manner in which the sculptor is described negligible: pieces from the Storck in the article is consonant with that of collection made up for the lack of response Fondane’s peers in Bucharest. Purity, counted on by the authors of the letter.29 ardour, labour, and a “childlike” attitude Alongside , Brancusi was both make up the portrait of a creator with a model and a legitimising figure in the supernatural powers: “Brancusi takes the early years of the Romanian avant-garde in failed creations one by one; he has repaired 32 124 particular, as emerges from the numerous the cockerel, the bird and Socrates.”

Evoking the refusal of the United States references to Brancusi which are more customs authorities to recognise Brancusi’s concise but no less significant. The Preface works as art, Fondane turns an apparent to Other Poems of 1932 summons up the agreement with them into a rhetorical figure of Brancusi via a description of the device: the sculptor’s works thereby studio, which is laden with thaumaturgic become similar to the works of antiquity, powers: “I shall rejoice in that limestone which have neither “author” nor history. dust which I shall inhale through my mouth “Let us not believe that the artist’s intention and clothes, and in the suddenly luminous is to make art; Brancusi believes it least of silence I shall hearken by the master’s side all,” writes Fondane.33 Although the writer to how life hardens like a stalactite in the and the sculptor were not friends, and cave within us.”36 Fondane was conscious of the myth created Ilarie Voronca is not interested in around Brancusi, the dominant impression Brancusi’s biography. His novel focuses on in the text is that of a figure removed from the encounter with the creator and the space time and space, whose presence in the in which this takes place: the studio. The everyday is seen as almost miraculous: studio does not have any definite spatial or “For Brancusi does not belong to the temporal co-ordinates, however, as it is present, or to his homeland, or to his composed of multiple, intersecting studios, century.”34 which are superimposed upon one another Brancusi also appears in the guise of a or stand in for one another. The text records literary character, albeit episodically, in the the narrator character’s first impression, writings of another member of the which is one of an agglutination of forms Romanian avant-garde. May Venom is a and matter without any definite purpose or late, posthumously published novel by Ion use. It is easy to detect here one of the Vinea, written before 1964, at a time when “classic” images of Brancusi’s studio, Brancusi was being rediscovered in which has already been given expression: Romania, at a time when socialist realism “Everywhere there lay blocks of stone. By had relinquished its hold. Here, Brancusi, the door there rose an endless column. alias the sculptor Gorjan, appears in the Hewn from transparent marble an guise of the bon viveur, a side neglected enormous fish vibrated in the center of the even in Peter Neagoe’s biography. A room. In the corners there were scattered number of pages give a detailed description pieces of wood, crosses, large wheels.”37 of the meal the sculptor prepares for two Imperceptibly, the sculptor’s studio is visitors, beneath whose masks might be transformed into the workshop in which the concealed Ilarie Voronca and Ion Vinea world is created. The creator performs the himself. Although a part of the vocabulary duties of a host, explaining his experiments referring to Gorjan is similar to that used by in detail to his visitor. The sketches, Janco and Voronca, Vinea’s attitude is fragments and indefinite forms undergo a much more detached, and in places ironic. change in status: they are no longer mere For example, the conversation littered with heaps of objects, but the leftovers of aphorisms is treated as a boring sermon, genesis. while the image of the wise man that Symbolically, the world of the studio is Brancusi had constructed for himself is created in six days, but without taking deflated with stinging humour: “Geniuses, definitive shape. Only limited human when they grow old, take up moralising and nature can be content with such a stage, by cast themselves as examples of life in ignoring the subsequent works, explains the accordance with nature.”35 creator. The obsession with origins and The mythic image of the sculptor and creation that can be detected by taking as a his studio, which Voronca constructs in The starting point the very themes of Brancusi’s Interview, is foreshadowed in prior works was widely commented on during 125

the period. An unsigned article translated was easily detectable in the studio, where from English and published in the each object shifts its qualities and aforementioned issue of Contimporanul meanings by means of a permanent begins as follows: “The work of Constantin re-contextualisation, identical to that which Brancusi is the expression of a cosmogonic Brancusi incorporated into his artistic concept.”38 Concerns of this kind, as well strategies. as the insistence with which contemporary The promise of the revelation of a work articles about Brancusi dwell on them, unknown to anybody else is constantly coincide with a theme current in the 1920s. postponed by the creator, and the visitor The avant-garde in particular had reasons to character finds it impossible to leave the prize his work, given that the search for an studio: “You find yourself eternally original world converged in some ways between its walls,” the creator tells him. with the desideratum of a new artistic and This constant postponement is justified by social order.39 the need for initiation, on the one hand, but To return to Voronca’s creator character, on the other hand, it provides a pretext for he promises the visitor to his studio that he the exploration of the studio, which itself will reveal his secret work. It is hidden becomes the secret work. Consequently, from the eyes of the public because, on the entry into the studio is not merely a visit, one hand, the public cannot perceive it or is but an existential act. As in surrealist not initiated, and, on the other, because the poetry, art has an effect upon life: it cannot artist wishes to prevent anybody from be cloistered in an autonomous space appropriating it. The process whereby the because it is above all experience. rest of the world comes to know the The purpose of the novel’s afterword is unknown work involves modifications of not in fact to provide sufficient clues in time, of which the creator is also capable. order to identify Brancusi as the creator Now, the space of the studio, which has character, but rather to reveal, through a already been described as unbounded, change in register, the background to the dilates and metamorphoses as the visitor writing of the text. The author’s voice character undertakes an initiatory journey. separates itself from the voice of the The length and breadth of the real world, reporter character who has been the first- the world of the imagination and the world person narrator hitherto, and sculptor B. is of the person are explored with the aim of declared to be one of the models for the gaining a complete knowledge of the main character. It might be argued that universe. Only this can prepare him to draw Voronca wishes to preserve a certain close to the secret work. It is interesting to ambiguity to the very end. At the same note that the pedagogic journey made time, it is also a self-referential discourse possible by the creator is not solely visual coloured by irony, which raises the in nature, but also incorporates other question of the relation between fiction and senses, such as taste and hearing. The reality, between fiction and autobiography. central part of the novel, which is the most While the writer has the power to build substantial, agglutinates short fantastic tales various and meaningful bridges, the two and memories, an opportunity for Voronca nonetheless remain distinct. This lesson is to make autobiographical inserts. Like in also valid in the case of Peter Neagoe’s any other initiation, the person initiated is novel, even if, in contrast to Voronca’s, it transformed: here, the character’s passage claims to be documentary. What is from one existence to another takes him interesting in the literature that makes art its “from the most abstract things to their most subject is ultimately not so much its concrete aspects.” Voronca projects onto documentary value as its capacity to put the visitor character one of Brancusi’s forward images, myths and stereotypes of major concerns, namely metamorphosis as the artist and art, and thereby to create a 126 an essential trait of any living being.40 This parallel history of art.

1 Nathalie Heinich has dealt at length with each of 14 I. Voronca, L'Interview, Marseilles, 1944, Notes these types in L'élite artiste. Excellence et singularité en p. 15. (“C’était par une suite des circonstances assez régime démocratique, Paris, 2005, p. 280-294. See also extraordinaires que j’avais obtenu cette introduction the discussion concerning biographical clichés in auprès du grand créateur.”) Donald Preziosi, Rethinking Art History: Meditations on 15 See, among others: Carola Gideon-Welcker, a Coy Science, Yale University Press, 1989, especially who was the first to interpret Brancusi’s work in this chapter two, and in Catherine M. Soussllof, The way: Moderne Plastik. Elemente der Wirklichkeit, Absolute Artist. The Historiography of a Concept, Masse und Auflockerung, Zürich, 1937. 16 University of Minnesota Press, 1997. See the procedings of the conference 2 Anna Chave, Brancusi’s Masquerade: Social Fictions biographiques, XIXe-XXe siècle, Université Standing, Self-Image, and Photographic Im/Posture, in Stendhal Grenoble 3, 11-14.05.2004 published Constantin Brancusi. Masterpieces from Romanian in Recherches et traveaux, 6, 2006, on-line: http://recherchestravaux.revues.org, 11.06.2012. Museums, New York, Gagosian Gallery, 2011. 17 3 Margit Rowell, Brancusi: Timelessness in a Philip Sohm, Caravaggio’s Deaths, in Art Bulletin, 3, Sept. 2002, p.450. Modern Mode, in Brancusi 1876-1957, Philadelphia 18 Museum of Art, 1995, p. 43. Ernst Kris, Otto Kurz, Legend, Myth and 4 See Rosalind Krauss’s elaborate analysis in Magic in the Image of the Artist, Yale University Press, 1979, p. 2. Passages in Modern Sculpture, 1998, p. 84. 19 5 The publications and exhibitions on the artist’s For similar examples of narratives of the studio in the modern era is extremely large. I quote here artist’s childhood see: E. Kris, Otto Kurz, op. cit., p. 25-26 et passim. only a few of the recent exemples: Pygmalions 20 P. Neagoe, The Saint of Montparnasse, New Werkstatt: Die Erschaffung des Menschen in Atelier von York, 1965, p. 9. der Renaissance bis zum Surrealismus [eah.cat.]; 21 Ibid, p. 84. Ateliers. L’artiste er ses lieux de création [eah.cat.], 22 Ibid. Paris, Centre Pompidou, 2007; The Studio Reader. On 23 Ibid., p. 111. the Space of Artists, Eds. Mary Jane Jacob and Michelle 24 Ibid. Gabner, University of Chicago Press, 2010. Brancusi’s 25 The comparison of the work of art with nature studio has been for many decades now a favoured object was a criterion for evaluating artists as early as of art historical inquiries and studies of which only a few antiquity. See: E. Kris şi O. Kurz, op. cit., p. 61-71. are quoted in some of the notes below. 26 6 P. Neagoe, op. cit., p. 284. The phrase belongs to Anna Chave, Constantin 27 I. Voronca, op. cit., p. 17. (“Les inventions des Brancusi: Shifting the Basis of Art, Yale University artistes entouraient d’un halo les maisons, les Press, 1993, p. 276. 7 avenues, les parcs.”) Jonathan Wood, Brancusi’s White Studio, in 28 Brâncuşi inedit... p. 218. Brâncuşi la apogeu. Noi Perspective, Bucureşti, 29 Cristian-R. Velescu, Contimporanul 1924 – 2001, p. 50; reprinted in The Studio Reader…, p. 269. Brancusi, Klee et l’interférence de leur poétique, in 8 Ilarie Voronca, L’Interview, Marseilles, 1944. Ligeia, 57-60, 2005, p. 155-158. Written in French and printed in a very limited 30 Contimporanul, IV, 52, 1925. number of copies, the novel did not enter Romanian 31 Marcel Iancu, Brâncuşi, in Contimporanul, IV, culture until very late, via a translation published in 52, 1925, p. 2. 1989: Interviul. 11 Povestiri, Bucureşti, 1989. 32 Benjamin Fondane, Constantin Brancusi [1929], 9 Peter Neagoe, The Saint of Montparnasse, New Paris, 2007, p. 11. (”Brancusi reprend une à une les York, 1965. The novel was translated into Romanian créations manquées; il en a déjà corrigé le coq, in the 1970s, when Brancusi became the object of l’oiseau et Socrate.”) special attention on the part of Romanian art 33 Ibid, p. 13. (“Mais ne pensons jamais que historians and the communist authorities: Sfîntul din l’intention de l’artiste est de faire de l’art; Brancusi, Montparnasse, Cluj-Napoca, 1977. moins que personne, n’y pense.”) 10 Natahlie Heinich, Artistes dans la fiction. Quatre 34 Ibid, p. 35-36. “Car Brancusi n’est pas générations, in Images de l’artiste – Künstlerbilder. vraiment d’aujourd’hui, ni de sa patrie, ni de son Colloque du Comité International d’Histoire de l’Art siècle.” Université de Lausanne. 9-12.06.1994, Berna – Berlin, 35 Ion Vinea, Venin de mai, Craiova, 1990, p. 235. 1998, p. 205-220. See also: Philippe Junod, L’atelier 36 Ilarie Voronca, Prefaţă la alte poeme, in Act de comme autoportrait, in Chemins de traverse. Essais sur prezenţă, Bucureşti, 1932, p. 84-85. l’histoire de l’art, Paris, 2007, p. 287. 37 I. Voronca, op. cit., p. 28. (“Partout gissaient de 11 Dicţionarul scriitorilor români, Eds. M.Zaciu, grosses pierres. Une colonne sans fin s’élevait près de M. Papahagi, A. Sassu, III, Bucharest, 2000, p. 385. la porte. Taillé dans un marbre transparent un énorme 12 Brâncuşi inedit. Însemnări şi corespondenţă poisson vibrait au milieu de la pièce.”) românească, Eds. Doina Lemny and Cristian 38 Constantin Brâncuşi, in Contimporanul…, p. 5. Velescu, Bucureşti, 2004, p. 243. 39 Anna Chave, Constantin Brancusi. Shifting..., 13 See: Sorana Georgescu-Gorjan, Constantin p. 132-143. Brâncuşi şi Ilarie Voronca, in Sud-Est. Artă, 40 Friedrich Teja Bach, Brâncuşi. The Reality of Cultură, Civilizaţie, 3, 2006, on line: www.sud-est.md, Sculpture, in Brancusi 1876-1957..., in particular 23.04. 2012. p. 23-24. 127