Théophile GAUTIER - Enamels and cameos

     "Our neighbours say : Shakespeare and Goethe ! We can answer : Victor Hugo and Théophile Gautier !
       This tribute of Baudelaire, after the emotive dedication of the « Fleurs du Mal » places Théophile Gautier at the summit of the mid XIX th century poetical mouvement. Still son of Romanticism he nevertherless opens the way to Parnasse with the wit of elevating poetry to « words of light » .
     Yet he had set his sights on painting. As fellow student of Gérard Labrunie, later called Nerval, at the lycée Charlemagne, he is presented to Victor Hugo. This meeting settles his future : he will be a writer ! His faithfulness to the « master » will never fail. His red cardigan, his « Merovingian » hat during the Hernani battle remained famous.
     An Art critic as Baudelaire, he writes articles in superbly clear language, wich say More of the emotion and of the aesthetical feelings in front of a piece than of Its description and analyse.
     In “Enamels and cameos” the magic of the octosyllabic verse with alternate rhymes, Turns everything in a painting : the woman who undresses before love in the poem of the Women, « emerging from the pure waves of a lake » the Nude invites us to love, just as the swan-women in the Major White Symphony swim and sing near the banks of the Rhine.
     Gold medal in 1992 and honour medal in 1997 of the French Artist Exhibition, Hélène Nué, with a sensitive and accurate hand, expresses the formal beauty of the quatrains in 7 copperplates and 16 lithographs all originals.
     Hand set in foundry type 16 point Garamond, the text and the lithographs were printed by Pascal Duriez, Master Printer.The copper plates were dabbed by Didier Manonviller in Moret’s studio.
      The work, run at 150 numbered samples on finest papers Velin de Rives in super royal octavo ( 19x28 cm) and bound full shagreen with engraved boards is presented in a leather turned-in box.
Each plate is signed by the Artist.