Henri Michaux, Poet-Painter by Alison Vort Halász B. A. Ohio University
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Henri Michaux, poet-painter by Alison Vort Halász B. A. Ohio University, 1997 M. A. Ohio University, 1999 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2007 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Alison Vort Halász It was defended on June 15, 2007 and approved by Dr. Millard F. Hearn Jr., Professor, Department of History of Art and Architecture Dr. Philip Watts, Associate Professor, Department of French and Italian Dissertation Co-Advisor: Dr. Roberta Hatcher, Assistant Professor, Department of French and Italian Dissertation Advisor: Dr. Daniel Russell, Professor, Department of French and Italian ii Copyright © by Alison Vort Halász 2007 iii Henri Michaux, poet-painter Alison Vort Halász, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2007 Henri Michaux’s trip to the Far East in 1930-1931 became a point of departure for his career-long inquiry into the relation between language and image which led him to combine the poetic and the pictorial as a way to relieve tensions within his divided self. For over sixty years, the Belgian-born (1899-1984) poet-painter created text-only, image-only, and over twenty text- and-image works. The merging of language and image in Michaux’s text-and-image projects breaks down divisions between these two arts and consequently moves away from G. E. Lessing’s separation of the arts. This departure from the modernist view of literature and art positions Michaux as a transitional figure: as a practitioner between arts, cultures, and period styles. Just as Michaux’s divided self came together to a certain degree from his creative work, so too did his work obtain a unity of the poetic and the pictorial that blended into one kind of expression. Although Michaux combined words and images to explore the self, this activity led to the parallel development of Michaux as a poet-painter and to a merging relation between the verbal and the visual. This dissertation explores Michaux’s transformation into a hybrid artist and the works he produced between 1922 and 1984. The initial chapter approaches the biographical features contributing to Michaux’s career as a poet-painter and how mixing media was essential to his practice. The following chapter frames the relations of words and images in a theoretical context, focusing on Lessing’s separation of the sister arts and on W. J. T. Mitchell’s opposing iv view, in which he considers language and image not as separate forms of expression but instead as overlapping forms. This framework serves as the methodology for approaching Michaux’s corpus and this analysis situates his mixed-media work in relation to writers and artists like Guillaume Apollinaire and René Magritte. The final chapter presents case studies of the verbal- visual overlap in Michaux’s text-and-image projects and his poetic inquiry into his own visual art and that of other artists. These constructions illustrate the diversity within Michaux’s work while showing the unity within his text-and-image corpus. v TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE ............................................................................................................................. xii INTRODUCTION.....................................................................................................................1 1.0 THE TRANSITION TO POET-PAINTER...........................................................11 1.1 Transitional Beginnings: From Belgium to the Far East......................................11 1.2 The Question of Writing and Painting ..................................................................26 1.3 Travel, Writing, and Painting................................................................................48 1.4 Michaux Poet, Michaux Painter ............................................................................69 1.5 Towards Reconciliation..........................................................................................73 2.0 WORDS AND IMAGES ................................................................................................87 2.1 Word and Image Relationships..............................................................................87 2.2 Word and Image Formations...............................................................................108 2.3 Michaux and Magritte: Using Language in Image .............................................122 2.4 Michaux in Search of Language ..........................................................................133 3.0 TEXT AND IMAGE INQUIRIES ...............................................................................156 3.1 Bringing Words and Images Together ................................................................156 3.2 Illustrated Hybrids...............................................................................................162 3.3 Beyond Words and Images: Mescaline................................................................175 3.4 Poetic Inquiry I.....................................................................................................184 vi 3.5 Poetic Inquiry II ...................................................................................................190 3.6 Poetic “signes” ......................................................................................................208 CONCLUSION .....................................................................................................................224 APPENDIX A........................................................................................................................231 APPENDIX B........................................................................................................................233 BIBLIOGRAPHY .................................................................................................................235 vii LIST OF FIGURES All works by Henri Michaux unless otherwise indicated. Figure 1. Alphabet (recto), (1927) ink on paper, 14 1/4 x 10 5/8 cm, private collection, rpt. in Alfred Pacquement, Henri Michaux peintures (Paris: Gallimard, 1993) 23....................................................................34 Figure 2. Narration (1927) India ink on paper, 14 1/4 x 10 5/8 cm, private collection, rpt. in Henri Michaux, ed. Alfred Pacquement and Agnès de la Beaumelle (New York: The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in conjunction with the Centre Georges Pompidou, Musée national d’art moderne, Paris, 1978) 15....................................35 Figure 3. Detail of Narration (1927) India ink on paper, 14 1/4 x 10 5/8 cm, rpt. in Émergences-résurgences trans. Richard Seiburth (New York: The Drawing Center, 1972) 10..............................................................................36 Figure 4. Alphabets (1943), ink on paper, collection Robert Godet, rpt. in Peintures et dessins, in OC, I, 931.........................................................................38 Figure 5. Paul Klee Le Petit est de sortie (1937), (Der Kleine hat Aussgang) (1937), rpt. in Henri Michaux: le regard des autres (Paris: Galerie Thessa Herold, 1999) 19 ................................42 Figure 6. Untitled Mouvements (1951), ink on paper, 32 x 24 cm, private collection, rpt. in Face aux verrous (Paris: Gallimard, 1951) n. pag..........................................................................................................43 Figure 7. “Untitled” Arbres des tropiques 8/18 (1942), rpt. in OC, I, 733 .............................60 Figure 8. “Untitled” Arbres des tropiques 14/18 (1942), rpt. in OC, I, 739...........................61 Figure 9. “Untitled” Arbres des tropiques 15/18 (1942), rpt. in OC, I, 740...........................62 Figure 10. Page from Misérable miracle (1956), rpt. in Misérable miracle (Paris: Gallimard, 1972) 35..................................................................................65 Figure 11. “Untitled” Mouvements (1951), ink on paper, 32 x 24 cm, private collection, rpt. in Face aux verrous (Paris: Gallimard, 1951) n. pag........................................................................................................76 viii Figure 12. “Untitled” Mouvements (1951), ink on paper, 32 x 24 cm, private collection, rpt. in Face aux verrous (Paris: Gallimard, 1951) n. pag.........................................................................................................77 Figure 13. “Untitled” Mouvements (1951), ink on paper, 32 x 24 cm, private collection, rpt. in Face aux verrous (Paris: Gallimard, 1951) n. pag.........................................................................................................78 Figure 14. “Untitled” Mouvements (1951), ink on paper, 32 x 24, private collection, rpt. in Face aux verrous (Paris: Gallimard, 1951) n. pag........................................................................................................79 Figure 15. Page from Saisir (1979), rpt. in OC, III, 971........................................................91 Figure 16. Page from Misérable miracle (1956), drawing c. 1954, rpt. in Misérable miracle (Paris: Gallimard, 1972) 34..........................................95 Figure 17. Page from Lecture par Henri Michaux de huit lithographies de Zao Wou-Ki, poem, Henri Michaux (1950), lithograph, Zao Wou-Ki (1949), rpt. in OC, II, 266-267.........................................................97 Figure 18. Pages from Emérgences-résurgences (1972), Untitled “Mouvements” China