Lithograph, 1961

Publisher : Nouveau Cercle parisien du Livre (Paris)

Printer : Mourlot (Paris)

Catalog : [Vallier 171]

32.00 cm. x 25.00 cm. | 12.6 in. x 9.84 in. (paper)

Mounted on a white background

The work we propose is one of the four lithographs taken from the illustrated book "Descente aux Enfers" written by Marcel Jouhandeau and published by the Nouveau Cercle Parisien du Livre in 1961.

The novelist retraces the itinerary of his return to his native town, Guéret, through encounters with the people he knew as a child. Anxiety intrudes as he ventures into this place, the first theater of his inspiration. Between nostalgia, melancholy and hope, the novel echoes the personal torments of the author, torn between his homosexuality and his Catholic education. If God seems to haunt him, introspection and morality obsess him: "If man does not understand hell, it is because he has not understood his own heart...".

The image of a flight of birds as created by Braque might seem dissonant with Jouhandeau's text. However, for Braque the bird is not an imitation of the animal but a form that conveys a meaning, it is a sign, as he reminds us: "We must not imitate what we want to create. It is then that this bright orange bird flight, supported by a saffron yellow background, reveals all its possibilities. The work, aerial, luminous and evanescent, opposes the drama of its title but exposes all the complexity of the spirit of the text it illustrates.

Handsigned by the artist in pencil
Certificate of authenticity

Ref : LCD5349