Click here to enlarge

Click to order the image

Image

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

A Brief Glossary of Eroticism

Archives

Author

Author André Breton
People cited Henri d' Amfreville, Charles Baudelaire, Charles Fourier, Joris-Karl Huysmans, Pierre Klossowski, Louise Labé, Honoré-Gabriel Riqueti, Comte de Mirabeau, Gustave Moreau, Pierre-Léon Palau, Oscar Panizza, Donatien Alphonse François de Sade, Balthus, Georges Bataille, Maurice Heine

Description

Manuscript signed by by André Breton, undated.

A few proper names, both classical (Mirabeau) and modern (Maurice Heine, the Sadian scholar; Balthus and his child-women), a few common terms (fetishism scabrous succubus), and, finally, some references personal to Breton, such as Freud or Gustave Moreau: these are the entries chosen by the poet for his contribution to the Lexique succinct de l'érotisme (Brief Glossary of Eroticism), which was included in the catalogue of the l'Exposition internationale du surréalisme of December 1959 (at the Daniel Cordier gallery). The entries range from the strictly informative, such as the names of people, to some flights of fancy that are amongst André Breton's best such as the scabrous "that which colours the entire length of the precipice narrowly avoiding it to induce vertigo". [Atelier André Breton website, 2005]

Autograph manuscript signed by André Breton, undated.

7 pages in-12 ° et 1 title page, handwritten in ink by Breton with some erasures and corrections, of brief notes on several authors (Baudelaire, Charles Fourier, Maurice Heine, Louise Labbé, Mirabeau, Oscar Panizza, Georges Bataille), some painters  (Balthus, Gustave Moreau) and on concepts related to eroticism such as 'scabrous' or 'fetishism':

"Worship of a particular object relating to a woman's clothing which, by elective fixation, is sufficient in its absence to provoke erotic exaltation. From the same source, no doubt comes the widely-held magical belief that to have the hair or nail clippings of a desired woman is already to hold her at one's mercy. (Professional fortune-tellers continue to take great advantage of these samples.) The fetish most often concerns stockings, shoes, furs, etc...." [Sale Catalogue, 2003]

For the catalogue of the Exposition sur l'Erotisme at the Cordier gallery, December 1959. [Atelier André Breton website, 2005]

Bibliography

André Breton (Édition publiée sous la direction d'Étienne-Alain Hubert avec la collaboration de Philippe Bernier et Marie-Claire Dumas), « Lexique succinct de l'érostisme », Alentours, Œuvres complètes, tome IV, Écrits sur l'art et autres textes, Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, Paris, Gallimard, 2008, p. 1100-1106, notice p. 1457-1459.

Exhibition place