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Les Hommes d'aujourd'hui, 338

n°338

Periodical

Author

Person cited René Ghil
Drawings by Manuel Luque de Soria, dit Luque
Text by Paul Verlaine

Description

The collection of Les Hommes D'Aujourd'hui was founded in September 1878 by André Gill and Félicien Champsaur. The journal was first published by Cinqualbre (until 1883), then by Léon Vanier after two years of interruption. The last publication appeared in 1899. André Breton posessed 27 numbers of the collection.

The revue was originally inspired by the successful journal, Le Bulletin de vote, published in collaboration with the journalist Maxime Rude which was a collection of illustrated biographies, promoting the republican candidats in the legislative elections of October 1877. The collection of Les Hommes d'aujourd'hui strays from militant politics; each number (containing 4 pages) is devoted to a different contemporary figure belonging to the world of arts, literature or science. A colorful portrait of the spotlight celebrity is on each cover, followed by three pages of text, citations from the author, entire poems or various notable facts about the author's work. The texts are playful, and at times written in jest, composed of contemporaneous and fantastic elements.

When Léon Vanier took over the publication in 1885, he decided that more than one caricaturist would design and draw the portraits. André Gill and Henri Demare were the artists of the very first portraits. Among the artists that would join would be Manuel Luque de Soria, called "Luque" who would sign the caricature of René François Ghilbert called René Ghil, for the issue n°338 of the collection.

The poet here is dressed in a roman toga, playing the lute before a poster on which the titles of two of his works is written: Le Geste ingénu (1887) and the Traité du verbe (1886), which became well-known because of its preface written by Stéphane Mallarmé. The reference here is to roman antiquity, the lute and the box holding the quill of the poet, mixed with some music notes, echo without a doubt the concept of "verbal instrumentation" which René Ghil would theorize within his understanding of poetry as restitution to a lost original language.

Bibliographical materialBreton Sale, lot 1107. Paris, Librarie Vanier, 1890. In-4° paperback.
ISSNL 1147-677X
Issue338
Date of publication 1878
Publicationfirst publication
LanguagesFrench
PublisherLibrairie Vanier, Paris
Breton Auction, 2003Lot 1107
Keywords, ,
CategoriesJournals
SetJournaux et revues, [Journal] Les Hommes d'aujourd'hui
Permanent linkhttps://cms.andrebreton.fr/en/work/56600100117930