Pierre Reverdy

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Amedeo Modigliani : Portrait Pierre Reverdy, 1915

Pierre Reverdy (born September 13, 1889 in Narbonne , † June 17, 1960 in the Abbey of Saint-Pierre near Solesmes ) was a French poet , author of literary theoretical essays and short stories. His literary work comes from the circles of Cubism and Surrealism .

Life

Pierre Reverdy grew up near the Montagne Noire . There were many sculptors among his ancestors . His father taught him to read and write. He completed his studies in Toulouse and Narbonne.

Reverdy moved to Paris in October 1910 . Here he lived in the Bateau-Lavoir studio house on Montmartre , where he met Pablo Picasso , Guillaume Apollinaire , Max Jacob , Louis Aragon , André Breton , Philippe Soupault and Tristan Tzara, among others . Among his friends in Paris were Pablo Picasso, Georges Braque , Juan Gris and Henri Matisse . When surrealism began to develop, Reverdy was involved in its creation. In the first Surrealist Manifesto , Breton described Reverdy as "the greatest poet of our time". In 1914 Reverdy married the seamstress Henriette Charlotte Bureau.

Reverdy published his first volume of poems Poèmes en prose in 1915 , which the Cubist painter Juan Gris provided with illustrations. In 1917 Reverdy founded the avant-garde literary journal Nord-Sud together with Max Jacob and Guillaume Apollinaire . Sales were discontinued in 1918. The title Nord-Sud was derived from the Paris metro station of the same name, which from 1910 connected Montmartre with Montparnasse . His “Image Theory”, published in North-South in March 1918 , influenced the young Breton as it offered him the key to understanding what was happening to him. The words emerging from the unconscious condense into a picture: “The picture is a pure creation of the spirit - it cannot arise from a comparison, but rather from the approach of two more or less distant realities. - The more distant and more precise the relationships between the approximated realities, the stronger the picture - the more emotional impact and poetic reality it has […] ”.

The Abbey of Saint-Pierre in Solesmes, where Reverdy lived until 1960

In the early 1920s, Reverdy had a liaison with fashion designer Coco Chanel and dedicated many poems to her.

Reverdy gradually distanced himself from the surrealist environment, left Paris in 1926 at the age of 37, converted to Catholicism and chose the Saint-Pierre Abbey in Solesmes as his new place of residence , where he lived as a lay brother . He stayed there until his death in 1960. During this time he wrote poetry such as Sources du vent , Ferraille and Le Chant des morts . He also wrote two books with literary theoretical content mixed with aphorisms : En vrac and Le livre de mon bord .

Pierre Reverdy’s estate and works are looked after by the library of the same name in Sablé-sur-Sarthe . It currently houses 60 exhibits, including five artist books on texts by Reverdy illustrated by Juan Gris, Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso .

Work (selection)

Feuille ouverte , poem on a wall in Leiden
  • 1915 Poèmes en prose , illustrated by Juan Gris , Imprimerie Birault, Paris
  • 1916 La Lucarne ovale , Imprimerie Birault
  • 1916 Quelques poèmes , Imprimerie Birault
  • 1917 Le Voleur de Talan , novel. Imprimerie Rullière, Avignon
  • 1918 Les Ardoises du toit , illustrated by Georges Braque , Birault
  • 1918 Les Jockeys camouflés et période hors-texte , Imprimerie F. Bernouard
  • 1919 La Guitare endormie , Imprimerie Birault
  • 1919 self defense . Critique-Esthétique. Imprimerie Birault
  • 1921 Étoiles peintes , Sagittaire, Paris
  • 1921 Cœur de chêne , Éditions de la Galerie Simon
  • 1922 Cravates de chanvre , Éditions Nord-Sud
  • 1924 Pablo Picasso et son œuvre. In: Pablo Picasso. Gallimard, Paris
  • 1924 Les Épaves du ciel , Gallimard, Paris
  • 1925 Écumes de la mer , Gallimard, Paris
  • 1925 Grande nature , Les Cahiers libres, Paris
  • 1926 La Peau de l'homme , Gallimard, Paris
  • 1927 Le Gant de crin , Plon, Paris
  • 1928 La Balle au bond , Les Cahiers du Sud, Marseille
  • 1929 Sources du vent , Maurice Sachs éditeur
  • 1929 Flaques de verre , Gallimard, Paris
  • 1930 Pierres blanches , Éditions d'art Jordy, Carcassonne
  • 1930 Risques et périls , contes 1915–1928. Gallimard, Paris
  • 1940 Plein verre , Nice
  • 1945 Plupart du temps , poèmes 1915–1922. Contents: Poèmes en prose , Quelques poèmes , La lucarne ovale , Les ardoises du toit , Les jockeys camouflés , La guitare endormie , Étoiles peintes , Cœur de chêne et Cravates de chanvre , Gallimard, Paris
    • again in 1969 in the Poésie series
    • in German: Most of the time. Transl., Epilogue Dieter Schöneborn. Series: Forgotten Poets of Modernism, 44th University of Siegen , 1990 ISSN  0177-9869
  • 1946 Visages , illustrated by Henri Matisse , Éditions du Chêne, Paris
  • 1948 Le Chant des morts , illustrated by Pablo Picasso , Tériade éditeur , Paris
    • in German translation: The song of the dead. Transl., Notes, woodcuts Johannes Strugalla, Despalles éditions Paris & Mainz 2011.
  • 1948 Le Livre de mon bord , notes 1930–1936, Mercure de France
  • 1949 Tombeau vivant , Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori , in Tombeau de Jean-Sébastien Galanis, Paris, printed by Daragnès
  • 1949 Main d'œuvre , poèmes 1913–1949. Contents: Grande nature , La balle au bond , Sources du vent , Pierres blanches , Ferraille , Plein verre and Le chant des morts as well as Cale sèche and Bois vert , Mercure de France
  • 1950 Une aventure méthodique , Mourlot, Paris
  • 1953 Cercle doré , Mourlot, Paris
  • 1955 Au soleil du plafond , Tériade éditeur
  • 1956 En vrac , Éditions du Rocher, Monaco
  • 1959 La Liberté des mers , Éditions Maeght
  • 1962 À René Char , PA Benoît, Alès (poème épistolaire, ed. 4 copies)
  • 1966 Sable mouvant , with illustrations by Picasso. L. Broder éditeur, Paris
  • Œuvres complètes. 2 volumes. ed. v. Étienne-Alain Hubert. Flammarion, Paris 2010, ISBN 978-2-08-122201-4 .

Secondary literature

  • Birgitta Heid: Only Picasso could do that. The artist book Le chant des morts by Pablo Picasso and Pierre Reverdy. In: Nina Schleif, Armin Second (Ed .: Pablo Picasso. Artist books: Works from the Udo and Anette Brandhorst collection. ) Hirmer, Munich 2010, ISBN 978-3-7774-3101-7 .

Web links

Commons : Pierre Reverdy  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ On friendship with Gris and the mutual influence on Cubism : John Golding: Visions of the modern . University of California Press, Berkeley 1994, pp. 94f.
  2. ↑ bloodaxebooks.com ( Memento from October 19, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ↑ Volker Zotz : Breton . Rowohlt, Reinbek 1990, ISBN 3-499-50374-3 , p. 41.
  4. ↑ See the detailed excursus on Reverdy’s influence on the surrealists: Siglind Bruhn: Olivier Messiaen, Troubadour: Understanding of love and musical symbolism in Poèmes pour Mi, Chants de terre et de ciel, Trois petites liturgies de la présence divine, Harawi, Turangalîla-Sinfonie and Cinq rechants . Edition Gorz, Waldkirch 2007, p. 42f.
  5. ↑ Ingrid Loschek : Fashion Designer: A Lexicon from Armani to Yamamoto . CH Beck, Munich 2007, p. 52f.
  6. ↑ Karen Karbo, Chesley McLaren: The gospel according to Coco Chanel: life lessons from the world's most elegant woman . Skirt !, Guilford 2009, pp. 71f.
  7. ↑ Pierre Reverdy , bibliotheque.sablesursarthe.fr, accessed on January 16, 2016.
personal data
SURNAME Reverdy, Pierre
BRIEF DESCRIPTION French writer and art critic
DATE OF BIRTH September 13, 1889
PLACE OF BIRTH Narbonne
DATE OF DEATH June 17, 1960
Place of death Solesmes