The visual arts influenced the writings of Blaise Cendrars for a half-century after he first joined the avant-garde scene in Paris in 1912. As he later remarked, ‘At that time, painters and writers were one and the same. We lived with one another and probably shared the same concerns; you might even say that every writer had his painter.’ Cendrars’s collaborations with Sonia Delaunay, Fernand Léger and others rank amongst his most innovative and distinctive creations. Rather than conventionally illustrated books, these are ‘iconotexts’ that employ the text and images as interrelated elements cohabiting in the same discursive space. Employing techniques of collage and montage, they import tropes from painting, photography and cinema as literary practices while treating words as a visual medium. By analysing some key examples, this illustrated talk will explore some of the most significant ways in which the visual arts shaped Cendrars’s oeuvre.
Eric Robertson is Professor of Modern French Literary and Visual Cultures at Royal Holloway, University of London.ÌýÌýHe has written widely on the French and European avant-garde, on bilingual writers and on text-image relations. He is the author ofÌýWriting Between the Lines: René Schickele, Citoyen français,Ìýdeutscher DichterÌý(1995),ÌýArp: Painter, Poet, SculptorÌý(2006; winner of the 2007 R.H. Gapper Book Prize),ÌýArp: the Poetry of FormsÌý(2017, with Frances Guy) andÌýBlaise Cendrars: the Invention of LifeÌý(in press; due for publication in May 2022). HeÌýhas co-editedÌýYvan and Claire Goll: Texts and ContextsÌý(1997, with Robert Vilain),ÌýRobert Desnos: Surrealism in the Twenty-First CenturyÌý(2006, with Marie-Claire Barnet and Nigel Saint),ÌýDada and Beyond Vol. 1: Dada DiscoursesÌýandÌýDada and Beyond vol. 2: Dada and its LegaciesÌý(2011 and 2012, with ElzaÌýAdamowicz).ÌýHe has written extensively on modern and contemporary art for museums and galleries in Europe and the USA, and with Frances Guy he co-curated the international touring exhibitionÌýArp: The Poetry of FormsÌý(Kröller-Müller Museum and Turner Contemporary, 2017-18).
Organised by Dr Caroline Levitt (The Courtauld)