Monday, April 6, 2015
Nerval's Lobster: Is walking a crustacean any more ridiculous than a dog? - Boing Boing
Nerval's Lobster: Is walking a crustacean any more ridiculous than a dog? - Boing Boing
A delightful speculative essay on the best-known Bouzingo mythic story, that of Gérard walking his pet lobster Thibault along the streets of Paris (one of many individual and collective stunts and pranks perpetrated by the group in the streets).
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Nov. 2012: Bouzingo-Related Classes, Research, Book, & Exhibition
Although the last update was over a year ago, progress in this project has not been stopped; on the contrary, there has been so much activity that there has been no time for an update. Most of you who have been following or contributing to the project have been privy to his activity, so I shan’t spend much time going over it again. So onward with several current updates:
I (Olchar) have been co-teaching a course entitled ‘Liberté: France in the 19th Century’ (history, literature, sociology, art, philosophy, etc.) with Brian Counihan at Community High School, an alternative school in Roanoke, VA. The educational model and the level of engagement by students has made it possible to present a complex and comprehensive picture of 19th Century French culture, including the mass of underground, alternative, esoteric and subversive traditions that boiled underneath ‘official’ culture and politics—we’ve been able to do more with this course than we’d have been able to do for many a college course. Needless to say, this class intersects greatly with the Bouzingo research; this month students will begin reading Gautier, Nerval, Borel, O’Neddy, Bertrand, Brot, and studying the Devérias, Boulanger, and Nanteuil. At the same time, research for the class has turned up new resources and new understandings for ongoing research into Frenetic Romanticism. Getting these online and, later, into print form will be a gradual process.
Alongside that class, and intersecting with it, is a parallel version of the class taking place through the Star City Shadow School, a loose DIY educational collective in Roanoke, VA. Hosted on THIS BLOG, the project combines pedagogy with research, involving independent researchers and interested people from all backgrounds and across North America and Europe, and is conceived similarly to how I would like to see the Bouzingo project function: participants follow along in the text being used by both them and the high school students, discuss the readings on the blog, and—most importantly—use these texts and discussions as jumping-off points to conduct their own small research forays into areas which interest them, exploring a wider network of alternative practices and communities than would be possible in a traditional ‘class’. Participants read and respond to as much or as little of the material as their other commitments allow—there is no ‘credit’, no evaluation, no minimum or maximum involvement, and my role is that of mediator rather than ‘instructor’. Anybody interested in the Jeunes-France, and especially in the historiographic model that we are attempting to explore, is encouraged to join in at any time!
Both the High School and the Shadow School versions of the ‘Liberté’ class share a four-volume series of anthologies or readers that I am assembling specifically for them; Vol. I and II are available now in printed format or as Free PDFs (links below). The other two volumes are currently under preparation. These books contain relatively short passages (few complete texts, unfortunately) by a large number of people. Vol. II, which was completed a few weeks ago, stretches to 450 pages, and includes a representative sampling of work by the Jeunes-France and their camarades, some of it translated for the Bouzingo project. All told, it includes over 150 pages of memoirs, poems, stories, prefaces and manifestos by the first generation avant-garde, and much more material that fleshes out their broader context, much of seeing print in English for the first time in over a century. Both volumes are available as physical books at printing cost HERE, or download FREE PDFs of Vol. I (1770-1825) and Vol. I (1825-1848).
Finally—and also related to the Liberté project—I am currently hanging an exhibition of drawings, prints, and books from my micro-Archive of 19th Century Counterculture at the Liminal Gallery, CHS’s art space in Roanoke, VA. This will include original drawings and prints by Achille Devéria, Célestin Nanteuil, Napoleon Tom, Paul Gavarni, and Gustave Doré, and over 30 books by the 19th Century avant-garde, some available for perusal (when their condition allows). There will also be a mini-library of more than 100 recent books and translations of counter-cultural work from 19th Century France, for use by students and gallery visitors. I am currently producing wall-placards with contextual material about the work exhibited and about the role of archiving and historiography within underground traditions, and an extensive exhibition catalog. (For an idea of what will be included, see the ‘Physical Archive’ tab above; the page is roughly 90% up-to-date, though not everything listed there will be included in the show.)
The exhibition will run from Nov. 14-Dec. 21, with a costume opening Dec. 7 to which attendees are invited to become Classicists or Romanticists, and heckle each others’ poetic and dramatic readings. It is rumoured that a bust of Racine might be danced around. Other lectures and discussions will be held in the gallery during its run, including a storytelling-lecture on avant-garde Romanticism, lecture/discussion on Fourier and underground organising, and share-and-tell of both the visual work and the books displayed.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
JUNE UPDATE
The past several months have seen a very large amount of research on my part, but extremely little of this has made it to the webpage as I'm immensely busy with other projects. For the most part it will be awhile longer before I can do a comprehensive update of the site, but I hope to keep tweaking in the interim.
Thankfully, other people have been lending a hand with research, the most exciting of which is posted below. This is doubly nice, in that it not only furthers and broadens our understanding of the Bouzingo, but even more importantly moves the project farther in the direction of a true community undertaking, in which a number of us are investigating and reconstructing whatever aspects of the Jeunes-France and their milieu we find most pertinent to our current practice.
So, updates:
Thankfully, other people have been lending a hand with research, the most exciting of which is posted below. This is doubly nice, in that it not only furthers and broadens our understanding of the Bouzingo, but even more importantly moves the project farther in the direction of a true community undertaking, in which a number of us are investigating and reconstructing whatever aspects of the Jeunes-France and their milieu we find most pertinent to our current practice.
So, updates:
- Tim Gaze has done research into connections between the Bouzingo's community and Eliphas Lévi, the one-time Evadamist who was instrumental in re-organising the French occultist community as it developed through the 19th Century. His text is posted below, and will soon be uploaded to the 'French Romanticist Community' tab as well.
- Gleb Kolomiets is beginning to research early Russian Romanticism in tandem with this project, and is encountering a number of historiographic challenges which he describes in the text below. He has also translated the only Russian-language writing on the Bouzingo that he could find online, also posted below and soon to be uploaded to the 'French Romanticist Community' tab.
- Warren Fry is currently writing a monograph on Achille Devéria's 1835 series of satirical erotica, Diabolico-fucko-mania: A History of Morals under King Louis-Philippe, teasing out the Jeunes-France's politicised relationship with Libertine subculture.
- The one thing I've managed to do myself is to add a freewheeling kind of catalog of my nascent archive of 19th Century avant-garde/gothic/counterculture ephemera, under the 'Physical Archive' tab. There will be photos up there eventually.
- Translation has been rather stalled lately, not an unforeseen circumstance given everybody's busy schedules. In the meantime I am [VERY] slowly undertaking the task of editing a very heavily annotated anthology of French Romanticist Prefaces & Manifestos, which is a long-term project but one which may succeed in making the general outline of the community's development and self-identification comprehensible in a way which is based in their own statements and proclamations, while also providing a richly-textured picture of the overlapping social and intellectual contexts in which and for which they operated. I'm using primarily translated texts already in the public domain, plus texts already translated for this project and whatever others are translated by the time the project comes together.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Tim Gaze: research on connections of Eliphas Lévi w/the Jeunes-France
Some research by experimental/ asemic writer & publisher Tim Gaze in Australia on Eliphas Lévi, who a few year after the Bouzingos' dissolution was involved with the Evadamist commune of the Mapah Ganneau. There's also a bit on this group HERE and HERE and HERE. Many thanks, Tim!
Connections between Eliphas Lévi & the «Bouzingo»
I did a tiny bit of research, to see if there were any obvious connections between the Bouzingo people and the influential scholar of esotoric knowledge, Eliphas Lévi.
My main source was Eliphas Lévi and the French Occult Revival by Christopher McIntosh (Rider, 1972).
Eliphas Lévi is the name under which our protagonist is best known.
Named at birth (8th February 1810) Alphonse-Louis Constant, Lévi was educated from 1825 at the seminary St-Nicolas du Chardonnet, with the intention of becoming a priest. The Principal, Abbé Frére-Colonna, was an expert in supernatural phenomena such as the animal magnetism used by Anton Mesmer.
Later, he studied philosophy at a college in Issy, then entered the theological college of St-Sulpice, training to become a priest. He was ordained as a Deacon in 1835, but abandoned the idea of becoming a priest in 1836.
After leaving St-Sulpice, he started to attend artistic and literary salons, and became active in radical politics.
At some time around 1838, Lévi met Honoré de Balzac, at the home of a Mme Girardin.
In 1839, in the company of the writer Alphonse Esquiros, Lévi visited the prophet Mapah, whose family name was Ganneau, who is already mentioned in prior Bouzingo research.
Alphonse-Louis wrote a radical book, La Bible de la liberté, published by Auguste Le Gallois in 1841. Both author and publisher were fined and imprisoned for this work.
He wrote a number of other articles and books on political ideas and religion. McIntosh comments that Constant managed to simultaneously be a radical and a traditionalist, fusing Socialist ideas with Catholicism. Constant's drawings and poetry were also published in journals.
In addition, he edited some notes entrusted to him by his recently deceased friend Flora Tristan, which were published as L'Emancipation de la femme, ou testament de la paria, in 1846. An early feminist work?
His first famous work on occultism, Dogme et rituel de la haute magie, was published under his pseudonym in 1856. Fluent in reading Hebrew because of his religious education, he decided to convert his Christian names into equivalent Hebrew names, changing Alphonse-Louis to Eliphas Lévi. Sometimes he used the name Eliphas Lévi Zahed.
Another famous work, Histoire de la magie, was published in 1860.
In the 1870s, Lévi received a visit from the author Judith Gautier (Mme Judith Mendès), who was the daughter of Bouzingo Théophile Gautier. Judith's husband, also an author, named Catulle Mendès, was an enthusiast of Lévi's work, and invited him around, where Eliphas met Victor Hugo. Victor knew of Lévi's writing.
So, there were definite connections between Alphonse-Louis Constant/Eliphas Lévi and members of the Bouzingo circle, although they occurred much later than the 1930s. Constant was still finding his way in the world in the 1830s. The word "Bouzingo" does not occur in McIntosh's book.
A deeper question about magic and the Bouzingo would be: was there any conscious, willed intentional magic by members of the Bouzingo during their most active period?
rough research by Tim Gaze, June 2011
Connections between Eliphas Lévi & the «Bouzingo»
I did a tiny bit of research, to see if there were any obvious connections between the Bouzingo people and the influential scholar of esotoric knowledge, Eliphas Lévi.
My main source was Eliphas Lévi and the French Occult Revival by Christopher McIntosh (Rider, 1972).
Eliphas Lévi is the name under which our protagonist is best known.
Named at birth (8th February 1810) Alphonse-Louis Constant, Lévi was educated from 1825 at the seminary St-Nicolas du Chardonnet, with the intention of becoming a priest. The Principal, Abbé Frére-Colonna, was an expert in supernatural phenomena such as the animal magnetism used by Anton Mesmer.
Later, he studied philosophy at a college in Issy, then entered the theological college of St-Sulpice, training to become a priest. He was ordained as a Deacon in 1835, but abandoned the idea of becoming a priest in 1836.
After leaving St-Sulpice, he started to attend artistic and literary salons, and became active in radical politics.
At some time around 1838, Lévi met Honoré de Balzac, at the home of a Mme Girardin.
In 1839, in the company of the writer Alphonse Esquiros, Lévi visited the prophet Mapah, whose family name was Ganneau, who is already mentioned in prior Bouzingo research.
Alphonse-Louis wrote a radical book, La Bible de la liberté, published by Auguste Le Gallois in 1841. Both author and publisher were fined and imprisoned for this work.
He wrote a number of other articles and books on political ideas and religion. McIntosh comments that Constant managed to simultaneously be a radical and a traditionalist, fusing Socialist ideas with Catholicism. Constant's drawings and poetry were also published in journals.
In addition, he edited some notes entrusted to him by his recently deceased friend Flora Tristan, which were published as L'Emancipation de la femme, ou testament de la paria, in 1846. An early feminist work?
His first famous work on occultism, Dogme et rituel de la haute magie, was published under his pseudonym in 1856. Fluent in reading Hebrew because of his religious education, he decided to convert his Christian names into equivalent Hebrew names, changing Alphonse-Louis to Eliphas Lévi. Sometimes he used the name Eliphas Lévi Zahed.
Another famous work, Histoire de la magie, was published in 1860.
In the 1870s, Lévi received a visit from the author Judith Gautier (Mme Judith Mendès), who was the daughter of Bouzingo Théophile Gautier. Judith's husband, also an author, named Catulle Mendès, was an enthusiast of Lévi's work, and invited him around, where Eliphas met Victor Hugo. Victor knew of Lévi's writing.
So, there were definite connections between Alphonse-Louis Constant/Eliphas Lévi and members of the Bouzingo circle, although they occurred much later than the 1930s. Constant was still finding his way in the world in the 1830s. The word "Bouzingo" does not occur in McIntosh's book.
A deeper question about magic and the Bouzingo would be: was there any conscious, willed intentional magic by members of the Bouzingo during their most active period?
rough research by Tim Gaze, June 2011
Gleb Kolomiets: on independant historical research in Russia
Writer/theorist/publisher/organiser Gleb Kolomiets in Smolensk is attempting to coordinate research on radical Russian Romanticism contemporaneous with the Bouzingo/Jeunes-France, but is encountering historiographic challenges quite different in many ways than what independent researchers face here in the West (and similar in many other ways). His account of his current struggles in this direction are fascinating:
There was a quite serious school of history of literature & fine art in the USSR (Marxist-Leninist ideology always insisted on a primary nature of political and social conflicts in the questions of art and art history). Most investigators tried to describe and analyse the political and social background of biographies, but the problem is that they gave a communist interpretation for almost every political act of every artist/writer/etc. So most soviet investigations on the history of art is a lie. For example Pushkin who lived a quite apolitical life and concentrated mostly on his sexual activity and on sexual activity of his wife is often described as a 'fighter for freedom' and 'active participant of the Decembrist uprising'. Yes, he was somewhat involved in the Decembrists political group, but it's almost impossible to investigate the 'real' character of this relation because of communist propaganda in the historical writings on Pushkin.
Contemporary art history in Russia, on the contrary, is quite anti-communist and Pushkin is described as a fully apolitical figure or a national loyalist in "new" writings. Besides this there is a strong intention of biographers to write a "scandalous bestseller", the facts are distorted to achieve good sales. The most representative example is the investigation of Mayakovsky's suicide which I read couple of yeas ago. The author was certain that Myakovsky was murdered by the NKVD but his certainty wasn't proven by any facts. Yes, I can feel a falsification in the books I read, I can see the 'hollow' places filled by hollow words but it's extremely hard to reach "original" documents. Most publications of the letters by Russian classics and memoirs of their contemporaries were "edited" in Soviet times and there are no new re-publications now.
The relationship to prominent writers|artists|etc in Russia is very harmful: the classics are the saints and nobody dares to defame their virtue. So there is a huge amount of unpublished or extremely rare "discrediting evidence" locked in the archives and in special custody where any non-specialist is never permitted.
So I've described the problems which I shall surely face when I start my investigation on Russian romanticism and its social and political background. But I still think about these ideas as very interesting and perspective. I'll try to review available materials and books and try to make a decision: is it possible to be at least relatively objective in my investigation.
By the way, a couple of years ago I found out that there was a quite active group of Futurists here in Smolensk. I tried to find info on their activities, but I found out that there is no information on this issue on the Internet at all, and all existing documents are stored in the Moscow literary archive which is unassailable for those who have no historical/philological education or just live outside Moscow... The way of prostituting and perverting the history of art in Russia is much more straightforward than in the USA...
by Gleb Kolomiets
(See the post below for Kolomiets' translation of the only Bouzingo-related text he's found in Russian)
There was a quite serious school of history of literature & fine art in the USSR (Marxist-Leninist ideology always insisted on a primary nature of political and social conflicts in the questions of art and art history). Most investigators tried to describe and analyse the political and social background of biographies, but the problem is that they gave a communist interpretation for almost every political act of every artist/writer/etc. So most soviet investigations on the history of art is a lie. For example Pushkin who lived a quite apolitical life and concentrated mostly on his sexual activity and on sexual activity of his wife is often described as a 'fighter for freedom' and 'active participant of the Decembrist uprising'. Yes, he was somewhat involved in the Decembrists political group, but it's almost impossible to investigate the 'real' character of this relation because of communist propaganda in the historical writings on Pushkin.
Contemporary art history in Russia, on the contrary, is quite anti-communist and Pushkin is described as a fully apolitical figure or a national loyalist in "new" writings. Besides this there is a strong intention of biographers to write a "scandalous bestseller", the facts are distorted to achieve good sales. The most representative example is the investigation of Mayakovsky's suicide which I read couple of yeas ago. The author was certain that Myakovsky was murdered by the NKVD but his certainty wasn't proven by any facts. Yes, I can feel a falsification in the books I read, I can see the 'hollow' places filled by hollow words but it's extremely hard to reach "original" documents. Most publications of the letters by Russian classics and memoirs of their contemporaries were "edited" in Soviet times and there are no new re-publications now.
The relationship to prominent writers|artists|etc in Russia is very harmful: the classics are the saints and nobody dares to defame their virtue. So there is a huge amount of unpublished or extremely rare "discrediting evidence" locked in the archives and in special custody where any non-specialist is never permitted.
So I've described the problems which I shall surely face when I start my investigation on Russian romanticism and its social and political background. But I still think about these ideas as very interesting and perspective. I'll try to review available materials and books and try to make a decision: is it possible to be at least relatively objective in my investigation.
By the way, a couple of years ago I found out that there was a quite active group of Futurists here in Smolensk. I tried to find info on their activities, but I found out that there is no information on this issue on the Internet at all, and all existing documents are stored in the Moscow literary archive which is unassailable for those who have no historical/philological education or just live outside Moscow... The way of prostituting and perverting the history of art in Russia is much more straightforward than in the USA...
by Gleb Kolomiets
(See the post below for Kolomiets' translation of the only Bouzingo-related text he's found in Russian)
Bazensky/Kolomiets: Russian Text on the Bouzingo
Gleb Kolomiets has translated the only text he could find in Russian dealing with the Bouzingo. This piece by Andrey Bazensky plays pretty free and easy with the name 'Bouzingo', and deals with the whole 19th Century avant-garde, but does suggest the way in which the group's influence can bee seen throughout the century. It's approaching it as analogous to punk rock, reminding me a bit of Greil Marcus' Lipstick Traces. Thanks, Gleb!
By Andrey Bazensky
translated by Gleb Kolomiets
Bouzingos - the name of 19th century Parisian punks. They didn’t play music then, but wrote poems and novels. Some of them made it rather shrill and beautiful. Anyway they always played out of tune.
The leather boots and tight pants, a black velvet tunic and white Baroque-style shirt with ruffles, pink gloves, hair painted in bright green - that is Charles Baudelaire’s ordinary “suit” at the meeting of the Club des Hashischins. Once during a high-society dinner Baudelaire complained with boredom that the cheese has the smell of a child's brain…
Another sad punk and emo, Gerard de Nerval, was close to Dada and a Monty Python sketch: he was the one who walked his lobster on a blue ribbon over the streets of Paris.
Alphonse Esquiros recorded his somber hit – “The Wizard”, featuring, among others, a harem of dead courtesans, the bronze robot, as well as a hermaphrodite in love with the moon.
The album by gloomy aristocratic post-rocker Villiers de l'Isle-Adam dedicated [The Future Eve] to the inventor-Rosicrucian (he resembles Thomas Edison to me), who created an artificial woman. Mallarmé once said about Villiers de l'Isle-Adam: “this man never existed, except for his dreams”.
Huysmans tried to commit to a kind of androgenic focus in a Ziggy’s and/or in a Münchhausen’s manner: he tried to twist himself inside out in his creative experiments.
Some of these voyants suffered from synaesthesia. And most of Bouzingos sought the disorder of all the senses. They fled their own nature anywhere: into Africa, into drug addiction, to the barricades. They were stubbornly stroking themselves against the grain and heard, like Kafka, too many fraudulent votes to make up one whole personality. Bouzingos were the centaurs, openhearted freaks, walking stills trying to accommodate too many ingredients all the time.
Being aware of their monstrous nature, they believed a God, the demiurge, who isn’t a great specialist in a molding of humans. Blake once marked Him by the punk pun “Nobodaddy”. A friend Theo [this is Gautier--O.L.] called de Nerval “footless swallow”.
In short, everything has already happened. Today we can - in a cozy atmosphere - open the book and enjoy the results of theirs sublimation, an unparalleled soup from swallow-foot, transparent and delicate liquor silicum, which dissolves and disappears under the action of ordinary air…
By Andrey Bazensky
translated by Gleb Kolomiets
Bouzingos - the name of 19th century Parisian punks. They didn’t play music then, but wrote poems and novels. Some of them made it rather shrill and beautiful. Anyway they always played out of tune.
The leather boots and tight pants, a black velvet tunic and white Baroque-style shirt with ruffles, pink gloves, hair painted in bright green - that is Charles Baudelaire’s ordinary “suit” at the meeting of the Club des Hashischins. Once during a high-society dinner Baudelaire complained with boredom that the cheese has the smell of a child's brain…
Another sad punk and emo, Gerard de Nerval, was close to Dada and a Monty Python sketch: he was the one who walked his lobster on a blue ribbon over the streets of Paris.
Alphonse Esquiros recorded his somber hit – “The Wizard”, featuring, among others, a harem of dead courtesans, the bronze robot, as well as a hermaphrodite in love with the moon.
The album by gloomy aristocratic post-rocker Villiers de l'Isle-Adam dedicated [The Future Eve] to the inventor-Rosicrucian (he resembles Thomas Edison to me), who created an artificial woman. Mallarmé once said about Villiers de l'Isle-Adam: “this man never existed, except for his dreams”.
Huysmans tried to commit to a kind of androgenic focus in a Ziggy’s and/or in a Münchhausen’s manner: he tried to twist himself inside out in his creative experiments.
Some of these voyants suffered from synaesthesia. And most of Bouzingos sought the disorder of all the senses. They fled their own nature anywhere: into Africa, into drug addiction, to the barricades. They were stubbornly stroking themselves against the grain and heard, like Kafka, too many fraudulent votes to make up one whole personality. Bouzingos were the centaurs, openhearted freaks, walking stills trying to accommodate too many ingredients all the time.
Being aware of their monstrous nature, they believed a God, the demiurge, who isn’t a great specialist in a molding of humans. Blake once marked Him by the punk pun “Nobodaddy”. A friend Theo [this is Gautier--O.L.] called de Nerval “footless swallow”.
In short, everything has already happened. Today we can - in a cozy atmosphere - open the book and enjoy the results of theirs sublimation, an unparalleled soup from swallow-foot, transparent and delicate liquor silicum, which dissolves and disappears under the action of ordinary air…
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Feb. Update, #1
Progress has been slow but steady so far this Winter, as everyone involved with the project--myself not least of all--has been busy with other projects and duties. Nonetheless a number of new leads and areas of investigation have been opened, and now merely await the time to be followed up. I'm heavily involved with organising the Marginal Arts Festival here in Roanoke, VA, which occurs in less than a month, so nearly all of my energies will be there until then. It's likely to be early Spring before I'm able to resume heavy research or writing, though I'll try to keep updating the site in the meantime with what I do uncover.
Though I'm not adding much to the site itself, lots of juicy tidbits have turned up. Right now I'm just posting a few of the juicier ones, I'll try to get the rest up in the next week or two, we'll see what happens.
So here are some of the promising developments from the last couple months:
Though I'm not adding much to the site itself, lots of juicy tidbits have turned up. Right now I'm just posting a few of the juicier ones, I'll try to get the rest up in the next week or two, we'll see what happens.
So here are some of the promising developments from the last couple months:
- A French-language monograph written by Aristide Marie on Louis Boulanger, the Bouzingo painter & printmaker, has recently come into my possession. This is quite a windfall! A large number of black and white images and a solid amount of text I am unable to properly read. It's listed on Amazon but no copies have been available there for over a year; I managed to find a copy available on ebay. I am gradually scanning in Boulanger images and adding them to his online portfolio; there are already several new ones in there now. It's easy to understand his popularity in Frenetic & Gothic circles, looking at some of these grisly beauties. This project has also made me tolerably competent in scanning French texts for information, though if I slow down to try translating specific words and phrases my comprehension collapses; so I'm slowly semi-reading the texts and eventually will be able to correct and expand the biography of Boulanger that has already been posted on this site. There are also a number of poems, many of which are dedicated to Boulanger by his friends and some of which I suspect are written by him, but I need to examine French articles more carefully to be able to figure this out. Either way, these will one day end up being translated, or at least posted.
- In addition to this book, I have found online a review of Bouchardy's print "Fire from Heaven"(above), an illustration of Hugo's poem on the destruction of Sodom. The picture was produced in 1831, amidst the tumultuous convulsions of the Bouzingo's condensation as the most radical manifestation of Romanticist subculture. This enthusiastic review is from the same 1832 issue of the Revue des Deux-Mondes as the bitingly antagonistic review of Borel's Rhapsodies (possibly by the same person--reviewers are anonymous), and as such indicates that the split between the (newly) mainstream Romanticism of the Cénacle group and the evolving avant-garde Romanticism of the Jeunes-France was not universal. It seems that while Borel had forcefully placed himself on the Cénacle's shit-list, his friend Boulanger maintained more than cordial relations with them; indeed he remained one of Victor Hugo's closest friends throughout his life. The reviewer praises Boulanger's intellectual approach to the plastic arts, noting the immense amount of historical and anthropological research that Boulanger had conducted for this piece; he also deplores Boulanger's exclusion from the recent Salon, where his painting had been rejected on political grounds by the new July Monarchy. This and the reference to Boulanger's Romanticist classic The Torture of Mazeppa reaffirm his status at this time as a standard-bearer of Romanticist painting. Other comments provide a glimpse into the relationship of Romanticism to mass culture, as the reviewer anticipates copies of the print posted in the homes of Romantic supporters throughout France.
- Another example of the interaction of the Jeunes-France with mass culture, particularly through lithography, is also another recent acquisition: I am now the proud owner of a print of Célestin Nanteuil's The Cavern, reproduced in a British newspaper, the date of which I cannot learn since the print had already been cut out but which, from printing on the back, I estimate is from the mid-1850s to early 1860s. I've read enough 18th and early 19th Century gothic novels to recognise the subject as the hidden den of a robber band, such as those described by Radcliffe, Lewis, Maturin, Teuthold, etc. etc. So here again is a tantalizing indication of the Jeune-France's relationship with popular gothic/frenetic subculture.
- Gleb Kolomiets has begun taking a look at Russian Romanticism to discover if there are historical secrets there analogous to what is being uncovered regarding the Bouzingo. He has also translated a short essay on the Bouzingo from the Russian, which I'll try to post in a week or two along with some very interesting comments that Kolomiets has made about the unique historiographic challenges that he's meeting in Russia as he tries to dig beneath the official interpretation and canon; in certain ways the challenges are vastly different than what we face here in the West, in other ways surprisingly similar. Through the Mycelium publishing project that he has initiated, Kolomiets has also launched a series of books reprinting works by 'The Forgotten Avant-Garde' from throughout history, the first book being visual poetry, diagrammes, etc. by the Renaissance alchemist Robert Fludd. This project too is closely akin to the underlying historiographic concerns of the Bouzingo project (also just published by mycelium is a Russian translation of my own related essay, Toward a Radical Historiography: Creative Sociality and Traditions of Dissent.)
Quick Update on the status of translation/material gathering for the initial Bouzingo chapbook:
- Finished Translations (including older public domain translations) for: Borel (Essay), O'Neddy (Essay), Gautier (Sonnet & Essay), Nerval (Short Poem), Bertrand (Prose Poems); Translations in Progress for: Borel (Poem), O'Neddy (Poem), Nerval (Poem); Still need to start translations for: Bouchardy (act of a Play), MacKeat/Maquet (Poem or chapter or act, unless we use his unaknowledged collaborations with Dumas), Brot (Poem).
- We have images for: Thom/Thomas, Boulanger, both of the Devérias, Duseigneur, Nanteuil. I've found no images or architecture yet by: Clopet, Vabre, or Vigneron. I have a feeling I'm unlikely to find any, so they may be represented simply by bios and remembrances by their friends.
- Thus: We're probably a bit less than 2/3 through the translation for this first volume, while taking the visual work we're somewhat more than that.
- This is likely to take awhile yet. What may be feasible before then is an annotated collection of French Romanticist manifestos. This would be mostly Prefaces (the favoured format of Romantic manifestos), and would include those by the Jeunes-France (Borel, O'Neddy, Bertrand, Gautier) among those by other key Romanticists such as Hugo (a copy of his Preface to Cromwell was mounted as a Holy Relic on the wall of the Bouzingos' Tartar-Camp commune), Berlioz, Dumas, Stendhal, Delacroix, de Staël, Mussett, Sand, and others that are already in the public domain (I'd love to find some Nodier, Saint-Beuve, and Vigny...) but never collected together in order to provide a comprehensive picture of Romanticist Theory between 1820 and 1840. This could help all of us to get a better handle on the general intellectual context within which the group was operating.
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