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[Letter to Robert Amadou], fragment

L'Épreuve (1911-1917) by Robert Melville

Manuscript

Author

Author André Breton
Letter to Robert Amadou
People cited Giorgio De Chirico, Robert Melville, Antoine Watteau

Description

Typescript of a text by André Breton on De Chirico published in a special issue of the journal Métapsychique, entitled ‘L'Art et l'occultisme’.

Returning at the end of 1953 to a painting that had been obsessing him for a long time, Breton gives a penetrating commentary on Le Cerveau de l'enfant (The Child’s Brain) in this fragment of a letter to Robert Amadou, published in No. 37 [sic] of the journal Métapsychique. Giorgio de Chirico's painting thwarts all interpretations, simply staging - and here the allusions to theatre and cinema are clear - a situation that is both expressive and unreadable.

Breton, an art critic, is among those who admit the structural difference between plastic and literary languages, who attempt to modulate prose until it touches the plastic mystery, but who admit defeat when verbal language no longer manages to approach the mystery. [Atelier André Breton website, 2005]

Annotated typescript, undated.
1 page in-4° typewritten on Médium letterhead, with erasures and corrections in ink by Breton of a text titled "L'épreuve de Robert Melville" relating to De Chirico's famous painting Le cerveau de l'enfant (The Child’s Brain), which had been in Breton’s possession for a long time:

"In Le cerveau de l'enfant, the child's fury places us in the presence of the greatest of these enemies. It is a malignant and jealous image of the father. […] The father's eyes are closed. And this is for the simple reason that the child would not dare to look at him if they were open. [Sale Catalogue, 2003]

Bibliography

La Revue Métapsychique, n° spécial [27], « L’Art et l’Occultisme », Paris, 1954.

André Breton (Édition publiée sous la direction d'Étienne-Alain Hubert avec la collaboration de Philippe Bernier et Marie-Claire Dumas), « [Lettre à Robert Amadou] », Perspective cavalière, Œuvres complètes, tome IV, Écrits sur l'art et autres textes, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, Paris, Gallimard, 2008, pages 873 à 879, notice et notes p. 1401-1403.

La Revue Métapsychique, table 1940 - 1955

See also

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L'art et l'occultisme

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non identifié

Tiré à part de la Revue Métapsychique n°27 en janvier-février 1954.

Trois images, une notice descriptive, un lien.