ROUAULT GEORGES (1871-1958).

Lot 231
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Estimation :
1000 - 1500 EUR
Result with fees
Result : 1 690EUR
ROUAULT GEORGES (1871-1958).
L.A.S. "G. Rouault" with POEMS, [Golfe Juan 23] May 1941, to Doctor Philippe MARIAU in Nice; 7 pages in-4 in purple ink, envelope. Magnificent and long letter with six poems. Rouault speaks first of his son Michel, "a boy who is far too discreet in an age of conformism and notorious exhibitionism, I have been worse than he is, I have paid a very high price for him"... He spoke about the doctor to Henri MATISSE who is going to be operated... "Because of the light I shall be glad to be fixed here. But for more interior reasons and of another order I am far from it. Here it is the desert - in every respect [...] The main defect of this department is that it lives on tourists"... He evokes a session at the Geographical Society, where he refused to speak: "Tomorrow would I not also be scorned and overtaken by the conformists who are always on the page? But nevertheless, in the charming portrait that J. MARITAIN was willing to paint of me, was he not mistaken? For in the course of my rather uneven life I have had some run-ins with the crowd and also with some powerful buffaloes of politics or official boyars. Maritain classified me as anti-social. We met on rue des Feuillantines before or around the time he met Leon BLOY, whom I already knew, and my goodness, if I were not afraid to go on and on, I would tell you about the three or four adventures that could have turned out very badly for me, but by the grace of heaven the miscreant managed very well. For a sedentary man accustomed to ruminating in his corner, I did not have too bad a press, this said without singing too much victory; others can be born and follow... disasters defeated... because the masses and the crowds are vibrant and versatile moving or dull sometimes, inconsequent and unjust"... There follow six poems: I "The road rises to the horizon"...; II "Step to the right fugitive" ...., III "The door opened / Without shouting on its hinges"...; IV "If I sing this morning / in rumour"...; V "For the laurel returned from war / crooked mouth"...; VI Prayer (long poem occupying nearly three pages): "From the first minute when I painted / I understood my infinitesimal ignorance"... He begs the doctor not to talk about "these little things"; perhaps "they will frame an unpublished 'Miserere de Guerre', for if life is a struggle, is not art well loved by some? [...] I wished to send you here an unpublished work written on the plateau of Mille Vaches when I lacked everything - if not a little Indian ink and a single brush, fortunately a few sheets of paper and impossible to paint what was for me a martyr... so I wrote these poems with a brush above the shop of a tinsmith... a very up-to-date man who could speak with a peasant prudence about Courbet and Delacroix, not too bad, not worse than some specialists with a thesis, two steps away from a car driver who, in this real desert, wondered if he would keep "his Utrillo" ... for his daughter's dowry and if "it would go up again - or down again?" ... at the painting exchange ... sad story ... having nothing in common with art" ...
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