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Acknowledgments:<br/><br/>The publishers and the director acknowledge their indebtedness for aid<br/>and advice in preparing the text and the illustrations to the artist, to<br/>Miss M. Hagenbach, to private and public collections, to photographers, to<br/>Ralph Manheim for his very able translation, to Bernard Karpel for his<br/>extensive bibliography and to Mrs. C. Giedion-Welcker for her contribution,<br/>reprinted in a revised version by permission of “Horizon,” London.<br/><br/>Jean Arp and Hans Arp are identical, Mr. Arp using both first names<br/>according to the language employed. Mr. Arp has corrected and frequently chan<br/>texts and poems which have appeared previously in a different version.<br/><br/>The frontispiece and insert are original woodcuts, especially<br/>made by the artist for this occasion.<br/><br/>For literary sources and original publications refer to the bibliography.<br/><br/>Copyright, 1948, by Wittenborn, Schultz, Inc.<br/><br/>All rights reserved under international and Pan-American copyright conventions.<br/>Published by Wittenborn, Schultz, Inc., 38 East 57th Street, New York 22, N.Y.<br/>
Contents:<br/><br/>page 4 Acknowledgments<br/><br/>6 Prefatory Note by Robert Motherwell<br/><br/>7 List of Illustrations<br/><br/>9 Poems by Arp<br/><br/>Original text with English translation by Ralph Manheim<br/>33 Essays by Arp. English translation by Ralph Manheim<br/>79 Original Text of Arp’s Essays<br/><br/>119 Arp by C. Giedion-Welcker. English translation by A. E. van Eyck<br/><br/>133 Biographical Note by Gabrielle Buffet-Picabia<br/><br/>135 Bibliography by Bernard Karpel,<br/><br/>Librarian, The Museum of Modern Art, New York<br/>
Prefatory Note:<br/><br/>Shadowy figure in a low, modern doorway; marble white, precisely carved<br/>biomorphic eggs; light blue and white jig-saw puzzles, cleanly painted like<br/>fishermen’s buoys or toy boats; full of satires (“man is a pot the handles of<br/>which fell out of his own holes”); loving “nature but not its substitute,” repre-<br/>sentation; a modern man who hates for art or the world to wear the costumes<br/>of the past, a man who loathes the intrusion of the social world.<br/><br/>The “world of memory and dreams is the real world”; there Arp would<br/>live as a private citizen, but thought of the social world arouses his rage; his<br/>invective equalled only by that of his friend Max Ernst and of Picasso and<br/>Wyndham Lewis among modernist artists; his words explode at the workings<br/>of modern society, costumed fraud; he cannot bear that the “daily black joke”<br/>exists beside the “real world”; the Dadaist in him is aroused, and he writes<br/>true poetry, spontaneous and unforced, without desire to “be” a poet.<br/><br/>The emotion in his sculpture is prolonged; it is carved from hard stones;<br/>rage never enters his plastic work. Even the torn papers in his collages “ar-<br/>ranged according to the laws of chance” which might, to the innocent, seem<br/>angry rebellion against traditional art are serene, an effort to find a natural<br/>order, like that of leaves fallen on the ground (an order like any other when<br/>perceived as such, and relaxed and uninsistent). He finds correspondences for<br/>the volumes and rhythms of the surface of the human body, quiet and living,<br/>in bed, in the studio, and on the bank of the river, wherever it moves slowly or<br/>rests stationary.<br/><br/>Imagine coming upon one of Arp’s sculptures of “stone formed by human<br/>hand” in midst of a wood. Few artists in modern times enhance nature, perhaps<br/>only Arp. Brancusi’s outdoor works are monumental stone tables and columns<br/>on the scale of the elements, settings for a modern Oedipus or Lear; Alberto<br/>Giacometti’s recent figures are pervaded with anguish, the “I” seen from dis-<br/>tance, untouched, a stranger in the world of nature and man. Arp is a true<br/>pastoral artist (“my reliefs and sculptures fit naturally in nature”); his scale<br/>derives from adjusting the human body to its surroundings, garden or field;<br/>his process is slow and even as nature’s, carving that has the effect of Avater run<br/>over human stones (“the empty spaces in the marble nests . . . were fragrant<br/>as floAvers”). No Avonder predatory man nauseates him! His love is permanent.<br/><br/>The sky is August blue. Green skins dangle from the wild cherry trees. Its<br/>hair scorched, the ground droAvses. If an Arp sculpture Avere present, it too<br/>Avould sleep in the sun (“I Avork until enough of my life has flotved into its<br/><br/>Robert Motherwell, 24 August, 1948<br/><br/>6<br/>
List of Illustrations (sizes are given in centimeters):<br/><br/>frontispiece. Original woodcut, Meudon, 1948<br/><br/>insert. Original woodcut, Meudon, 1948, after sketch made in 1923 facing page 16<br/><br/>page<br/><br/>fig. 1. Max Ernst, Collage, 1921 (left: Arp smoking a pipe, right: Sophie Hen-<br/><br/>riette Gertrude Taeuber wearing a cape) 41<br/><br/>2. Marcel Janco, Cabaret Voltaire, 1917 41<br/><br/>3. Painted Plaster Relief, 1918 41<br/><br/>4. Painted Plaster Relief, 1918 41<br/><br/>5. Augusto Giacometti, Summer Night, oil, 1918, coll. Dr. Erwin Poeschel,<br/><br/>Zurich, photo Ernst Linck 42<br/><br/>6. Viking Eggeling, Diagonal Symphony, pencil drawing, 1919-20 42<br/><br/>7. Diagonal Symphony, pencil-drawing, 1919-20 43<br/><br/>8. Sophie Taeuber, Dada Head, wood and oil, 1918, 33.5 cm. high, photo<br/><br/>Marc Vaux 43<br/><br/>9. Arp, Plant Organism, limestone on revolving base, 1936, 147 cm. high,<br/><br/>coll. Maja Sacher, Pratteln, Switzerland 44<br/><br/>10. Owl’s Dream, limestone on wooden base, 1937—38, 26.5 cm. high,<br/><br/>coll. Curt Valentin, New York 53<br/><br/>11. Vegetation, project for a relief, oil on canvas, 1946, private coll.,<br/><br/>Zurich 54<br/><br/>12. Pre-Adamic Sculpture, limestone, 1938, 49 cm. high, coll. M. Ha-<br/><br/>genbach, Basle 55<br/><br/>13 a, b. Concrete Sculpture “Mirr,” bronze, 1936, 17 cm. high, coll. M. Ha-<br/><br/>genbach, Basle 56<br/><br/>7<br/>
14. Arp, Pre-Adamic Fruit, 1938, 30 cm. high, coll. Bally, Villeneuve, Switz-<br/>erland 58<br/><br/>15 a, b. Two views of Arp’s studio, 1946 59<br/><br/>16. Creative Metope, oak relief, 1946, 140 cm. high 61<br/><br/>17. Shell, black granite, 1938, 26 cm. high, coll. Buchholz Gallery, N.Y. 63<br/><br/>18. Birdlike Cloud, wood relief and oil, 1943, 51 cm. high, coll. Jan<br/><br/>Tschichold, West Drayton, Middlesex, England 65<br/><br/>19. Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Summery Lines, oil on cardboard, 1942 67<br/><br/>20. Sophie Taeuber-Arp and Arp, Collage, executed by both artists, 1918 68<br/><br/>21 a, b, c. Three Duets, drawings, 1939 71<br/><br/>22. Arp, Design in Paper, Torn in the Form of a Swan, Boot, Top and a<br/><br/>Pipe, 1942, coll. Henry Schultz, New York, photo Eidenbenz 101<br/><br/>23. Duet Design Composed of Torn and Colored Elements by Sophie<br/><br/>Taeuber-Arp, 1946, coll. H. Eidenbenz, Basle, photo Eidenbenz 103<br/><br/>24. Torn and Colored Paper with Stamped Designs, 1946 105<br/><br/>25. Torn Paper Design Reproduced in Blue and Torn-up Again, 1947,<br/><br/>photo Eidenbenz 107<br/><br/>26. Drawing and Torn and Colored Papers, 1947, photo Eidenbenz 109<br/><br/>27. Interregnum, plaster, 1938 110<br/><br/>28 a, b, c. Interregnum, black granite, 1946, 32 cm. high, photo Rudolf<br/><br/>Burckhardt 111<br/><br/>29 a, b. Lunar Armor, limestone, 1938, 37 cm. high, photo Burckhardt 114<br/><br/>30. Alu with Claws, plaster, 1942, 45 cm. high, photo Burckhardt 115<br/><br/>31. Amphora, plaster, 1946, xoo cm. high, photo Rudolf Burckhardt 116<br/><br/>32. Bird Mask, wood relief, 1918, coll. Doucet, Paris 125<br/><br/>33. Objects Placed According to the Law of Chance, (varnished wood<br/><br/>relief), plaster, 1931, coll. Nelly van Doesburg, Paris 126<br/><br/>34. Woodcut, for cover of “Der Zeltweg,” a dada review, 1919 127<br/><br/>35. Woodcut, 1920, from “Cinéma Calendrier du Coeur Abstrait” by<br/><br/>Tristan Tzara 128<br/><br/>36. Torn Papers, 1946, using impression of woodcut, 1920, from<br/><br/>“Vingt-cinq-et-un poèmes” by Tristan Tzara 129<br/><br/>37 a, b, c, d. Human Concretion, stone, 1936, (four views), coll. Maja Sacher,<br/><br/>Basle, photo Rolf Tietgens 130<br/><br/>38. Photograph of the artist, 1948, photo Rolf Tietgens 132<br/><br/>8<br/>
Poems<br/>
kaspar is dead<br/><br/>alas our good kaspar is dead.<br/><br/>who will now carry the burning banner hidden in the pigtail of clouds to play<br/>the daily black joke<br/><br/>who will now turn the coffee-mill in the primaeval barrel<br/><br/>who will now entice the idyllic deer out of the petrified paper box.<br/><br/>who will now confound on the high seas the ships by addressing them as para-<br/>pluie and the winds by calling them keeper of the bees ozone spindle your<br/>highness.<br/><br/>alas alas alas our good kaspar is dead, holy ding dong kaspar is dead.<br/><br/>the cattlefish in the bellbarns clatter with heartrending grief when his Chris-<br/>tian name is uttered, that is why I keep on moaning his family name kaspar<br/>kaspar kaspar.<br/><br/>why have you left us. into what shape has your beautiful great soul migrated,<br/>have you become a star or a watery chain attached to a hot whirlwind or<br/>an udder of black light or a transparent brick on the groaning drum of<br/>jagged being.<br/><br/>now the part in our hair the soles of our feet are parched and the fairies lie half-<br/>charred on the pyre.<br/><br/>now the black bowling alley thunders behind the sun and there’s no one to<br/>wind up the compasses and the wheels of the handbarrows any more.<br/><br/>who will now eat with the phosphorescent rat at the lonely barefooted table.<br/><br/>who will now chase away the siroccoco devil when he wants to beguile the<br/>horses.<br/><br/>who will now explain to us the monograms in the stars.<br/><br/>his bust will adorn the mantelpieces of all truly noble men but that’s no com-<br/>fort that’s snuff to a skull.<br/><br/>weggis 1912<br/><br/>10<br/>
kaspar ist tot<br/><br/>weh unser guter kaspar ist tot<br/><br/>wer trägt nun die brennende fahne im wolkenzopf verborgen täglich zum<br/>schwarzen Schnippchen schlagen<br/><br/>wer dreht nun die kaffeemühle im urfass<br/><br/>wer lockt nun das idyllische reh aus der versteinerten tüte<br/><br/>wer verwirrt nun auf dem meere die schiffe mit der anrede parapluie und die<br/>winde mit dem zuruf bienenvater ozonspindel euer hochwohlgeboren<br/><br/>weh weh weh unser guter kaspar ist tot. heiliger bimbam kaspar ist tot.<br/><br/>die heufische klappern herzzerreissend vor leid in den glockenscheunen wenn<br/>man seinen Vornamen ausspricht, darum seufze ich weiter seinen familien-<br/>namen kaspar kaspar kaspar.<br/><br/>warum hast du uns verlassen, in welche gestalt ist nun deine schöne grosse<br/>seele gewandert, bist du ein Stern geworden oder eine kette aus wasser an<br/>einem heissen Wirbelwind oder ein euter aus schwarzem licht oder ein<br/>durchsichtiger ziegel an der stöhnenden trommel des felsigen wesens.<br/><br/>jetzt vertrocknen unsere Scheitel und sohlen und die feen liegen halbverkohlt<br/>auf dem Scheiterhaufen.<br/><br/>jetzt donnert hinter der sonne die schwarze kegelbahn und keiner zieht mehr<br/>die kompasse und die räder der schiebkarren auf.<br/><br/>AVer isst nun mit der phosphoreszierenden ratte am einsamen barfüssigen tisch.<br/><br/>wer verjagt nun den sirokkoko teufel wenn er die pferde verführen will.<br/><br/>AVer erklärt uns nun die monogramme in den Sternen.<br/><br/>seine büste wird die kamine aller wahrhaft edlen menschen zieren doch das<br/>ist kein trost und Schnupftabak für einen totenkopf.<br/><br/>weggis 1912<br/><br/>11<br/>
roses walk on porcelain streets<br/><br/>1<br/><br/>at the edge of the fairy-tale the night knits roses<br/><br/>the tangle of storks fruits pharaohs harps is unraveled.<br/><br/>death lays its chattering wreath beneath the root of emptiness.<br/><br/>the storks chatter on the chimneys.<br/><br/>the night is a stuffed fairy tale.<br/><br/>2<br/><br/>the roses walk on porcelain streets and from the tangle of their years knit one<br/>star after another.<br/><br/>a fruit sleeps amid stars.<br/><br/>the empty lands stuffed years laughing trunks dance.<br/><br/>the storks eat pharaohs.<br/><br/>roses grow out of the chimneys.<br/><br/>3<br/><br/>death devours one year after another,<br/>the pharaohs eat storks.<br/><br/>between fruits a star sleeps, sometimes it laughs softly in its sleep like a porce-<br/>lain harp.<br/><br/>the chattering fairy-tales knitting streets packing storks dance.<br/><br/>4<br/><br/>the growing chimneys devouring harps porcelain wreaths dance,<br/>the roots of the pharaohs are made out of roses.<br/><br/>the storks pack their chimneys into their trunks and fly to the land of the<br/>pharaohs.<br/><br/>meudon 1930 from “muscheln und schirme” (seashells and umbrellas)<br/><br/>12<br/>
rosen schreiten auf Strassen aus porzellan<br/><br/>1<br/><br/>am rande des märchens strickt die nacht sich rosen.<br/><br/>der knäuel der storche früchte pharaonen harfen löst sich.<br/><br/>der tod trägt seinen klappernden strauss unter die wurzel des leeren.<br/><br/>die storche klappern auf den Schornsteinen.<br/><br/>die nacht ist ein ausgestopftes märchen.<br/><br/>2<br/><br/>die rosen schreiten auf Strassen aus porzellan und stricken sich aus dem knäuel<br/>ihrer jahre einen Stern um den anderen.<br/><br/>zwischen Sternen schläft eine frucht.<br/><br/>die leeren länder ausgestopften jahre lachenden koffer tanzen.<br/><br/>die storche fressen pharaonen.<br/><br/>aus den Schornsteinen wachsen rosen.<br/><br/>3<br/><br/>der tod frisst ein jahr um das andere,<br/>die pharaonen fressen storche.<br/><br/>zwischen früchten schläft ein Stern, manchmal lacht er leise im schlaf wie<br/>eine porzellanene harfe.<br/><br/>die klappernden märchen strickenden Strassen packenden storche tanzen.<br/><br/>4<br/><br/>die wachsenden Schornsteine fressenden harfen porzellanenen sträusse tanzen,<br/>die wurzeln der pharaonen sind aus rosen.<br/><br/>die storche packen ihre Schornsteine in ihre koffer und ziehen in das land<br/>der pharaonen.<br/><br/>meudon 1930 aus “muscheln und schirme”<br/><br/>13<br/>
in the hump of glass a sweet voice sings<br/><br/>1<br/><br/>larger and larger grew the empty spaces in the marble nests<br/>and when at last they were full grown<br/>they were fragrant as flowers<br/><br/>and were plucked by costumes overladen with gold<br/><br/>the costumes carried them to the rose-red births<br/><br/>that lay on serpentine ways<br/><br/>and transparent serpents<br/><br/>and cast audible shadows into the visible<br/><br/>2<br/><br/>the big goddamns arise from their seats<br/><br/>and crowd the little lightnings into the cracks in the air<br/><br/>the big lightnings shatter the little goddamns<br/><br/>the goddamns and the lightnings roll over and over<br/><br/>3<br/><br/>in the hump of glass a sweet voice sings<br/><br/>and yet there is no one to be seen in the hump<br/><br/>there’s not even a deaf and dumb grain of sand in it<br/><br/>palettes with noses lie on black feathers<br/><br/>and listen attentively to the voice<br/><br/>clouds with bandaged eyes approach curiously<br/><br/>the palettes with noses beckon them not to intrude<br/><br/>4<br/><br/>the commas and full stops jump into the hats of kisses<br/>to escape from the hair-raising springtime<br/><br/>»4<br/>
in dem höcker aus glas singt eine süsse stimme<br/><br/>1<br/><br/>immer grösser wurden die leeren räume in den marmornestern<br/>und als sie schliesslich ausgewachsen waren<br/>dufteten sie wie blumen<br/><br/>und wurden von den goldüberladenen trachten gepflückt<br/><br/>die trachten trugen sie zu den rosenroten gebürten<br/><br/>die lagen auf geschlängelten wegen<br/><br/>und durchsichtigen schlangen<br/><br/>und warfen hörbare schatten in das sichtbare<br/><br/>2<br/><br/>die grossen potze erheben sich von ihren sitzen<br/>und drängen die kleinen blitze in die ritzen der luft<br/>die grossen blitze zerschmettern die kleinen potze<br/>die potze und die blitze purzeln durcheinander<br/><br/>3<br/><br/>in dem höcker aus glas singt eine süsse stimme<br/><br/>und doch ist niemand in dem höcker zu erblicken<br/><br/>nicht einmal ein taubstummes sandkörnchen ist darin<br/><br/>paletten mit nasen liegen auf schwarzen federn<br/><br/>und hören der stimme aufmerksam zu<br/><br/>wölken mit verbundenen äugen nahen neugierig<br/><br/>die paletten mit nasen geben ihnen Zeichen nicht zu stören<br/><br/>4<br/><br/>die kommas und die punkte springen in die hüte der küsse<br/>und entkommen so dem haarsträubenden frühling<br/><br/>15<br/>
that rages beneath the sea-green walking sticks<br/>caressing stars<br/>light-aproned pyramids<br/>croaks cock-a-doodle-doo like an elephant<br/>and barks moo like a butterfly<br/>•<br/><br/>meudon 1936 from “muscheln und schirme”<br/><br/>16<br/>
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<br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/>
der wütet unter den meergrünen spazierstöcken<br/><br/>liebkosenden Sternen<br/><br/>leichtgeschürzten pyramiden<br/><br/>quakt kikeriki wie ein elefant<br/><br/>und bellt muh wie ein Schmetterling<br/><br/>meudon 1936 aus “muscheln und schirme”<br/><br/>»7<br/>
monte carlo<br/><br/>the three young lordships in bloom sway on their vanilla stem<br/>the feather floats in the mirror with the navel of light<br/>laugh with your arms<br/><br/>three flowers present a nubile diamond to the celestial glove<br/><br/>laugh laugh laugh like diamonds<br/><br/>the flowers wear gloves of light<br/><br/>the navel goes walking in slippers of sulphur<br/><br/>fashionable douceur<br/><br/>downy curls<br/><br/>petrified shudder<br/><br/>vegetation of exhumed breath<br/><br/>geometric fire<br/><br/>laugh laugh laugh like the vanilla<br/><br/>the three flowers present their gloves to the navels<br/><br/>the three young lordships in bloom are unfaithful to their pearl<br/><br/>the three pearls are caught in the cogwork of the roses<br/><br/>grasse 1941 from “siège de Vair”<br/><br/>18<br/>
monte carlo<br/><br/>les trois héritiers en fleurs se bercent sur leur tige de vanille<br/>la plume nage dans le miroir au nombril de lumière<br/>riez avec vos bras<br/><br/>trois fleurs offrent un diamant nubile au céleste gant<br/>riez riez riez comme les diamants<br/>les fleurs portent des gants de lumière<br/>le nombril se promène en pantoufles de soufre<br/>fashionable douceur<br/>frisure de duvet<br/>pétrification de frisson<br/>végétation d’haleine exhumé<br/>feu géométrique<br/>riez riez riez comme la vanille<br/>les trois fleurs offrent leurs gants aux nombrils<br/>les trois héritiers en fleurs trompent leur perle<br/>les trois perles sont prises dans le rouage des roses<br/>•<br/><br/>grasse 1941 du “siège de l’air”<br/><br/>*9<br/>
the seasons of the clock the<br/><br/>strawberry the velvety animals and the cradle<br/><br/>•<br/><br/>the nebulous clock rises in vapor<br/>the faces of earth lose their vagueness<br/>the roads take form<br/>the jewelry of mollusks sinks<br/><br/>•<br/><br/>not far from the twin diamonds<br/>where the path ends<br/>close to a blue strawberry<br/>i heard gentleness breathe<br/>i heard the sap sigh<br/>•<br/><br/>a forest of light<br/><br/>is cradled in a forest of darkness<br/>velvety animals<br/><br/>busy themselves around a spring<br/>the spring is furious<br/>though it seems strange<br/><br/>•<br/><br/>a breath comes looking for me<br/>groping like a blind man with his cane<br/>it persists in searching for me<br/>a somber heaviness clothes me<br/>i would like to sleep in a cradle of earth<br/>•<br/><br/>basel 1944 from “siege de Vair”<br/><br/>20<br/>
les saisons de l’horloge<br/><br/>de la fraise des animaux veloutés et du berceau<br/>•<br/><br/>l’horloge nébuleuse se volatilise<br/>les faces de la terre perdent l’incertain<br/>les chemins se précisent<br/>la joaillerie de mollusques sombre<br/><br/>non loin des diamants jumeaux<br/>là où le sentier se termine<br/>devant une fraise bleue<br/>j’ai entendu respirer la douceur<br/>et soupirer la sève<br/><br/>une forêt de clarté<br/>se berce dans une forêt d’obscurité<br/>des animaux veloutés<br/>s’affairent autour d’une source<br/>la source en est furieuse<br/>si étrange que cela paraisse<br/>•<br/><br/>un souffle me cherche<br/><br/>il tâtonne comme un aveugle avec sa canne<br/><br/>il insiste à me chercher<br/><br/>une lourdeur sombre me revêt<br/><br/>j’aimerais dormir dans un berceau de terre<br/><br/>bâle 1944 du “siège de Vair”<br/><br/>21<br/>
black veins<br/><br/>in my foggy heart<br/>the chimera of roses dies<br/>a star sits down at my bedside<br/>it is old and cracked<br/><br/>gray spiders move in file<br/>toward the horizon with the black veins<br/>they march as if it were a fairy’s funeral<br/>the void heaves a sigh<br/><br/>my poor dreams have lost their wings<br/>my poor dreams have lost their flames<br/>they rub elbows<br/>over the casket of my heart<br/>and dream of gray crumbs<br/>•<br/><br/>the day reappears<br/><br/>but my strength is gone<br/><br/>the sky descends and covers me<br/><br/>i open my eyes forever<br/><br/>meudon 1945 from “siege de Vair”<br/><br/>22<br/>
veines noires<br/><br/>dans mon coeur de brouillard<br/>meurt la chimère des roses<br/>un astre s’assied au bord de mon lit<br/>il est vieux et lézardé<br/><br/>•<br/><br/>des araignées grises s’en vont à la file<br/><br/>vers l’horizon aux veines noires<br/><br/>elles s’en vont comme pour l’enterrement d’une fée<br/><br/>le vide soupire<br/><br/>mes pauvres rêves ont perdu leurs ailes<br/>mes pauvres rêves ont perdu leurs flammes<br/>ils se serrent les coudes<br/>sur le cercueil de mon coeur<br/>et rêvent de miettes grises<br/><br/>le jour réapparait<br/>mais je n’ai plus de forces<br/>le ciel descend et me couvre<br/>j’ouvre pour toujours les yeux<br/><br/>meudon 1945 du “siège de l’air”<br/><br/>23<br/>
red violets<br/><br/>the arrows idle in their flight<br/><br/>the wings come loose and move towards the world of leaves<br/>wings and leaves are confounded<br/><br/>stars are beauty spots<br/>for the sky deep as your eyes<br/>cajoled the flower garden laughs<br/>in a genuflected light<br/><br/>the chain of mirages breaks<br/>against the cloud incrusted with kisses<br/>a balmy day<br/><br/>falls from a hump of fruit<br/>claws release a paltry prize<br/><br/>a green cloud dances on two legs of lightning<br/>then the violets grow faster<br/>children lovely as violets<br/>dance like clouds<br/><br/>little children littler than usual<br/>converse with an invisible child<br/>i forget my body<br/>the living joins with the dead<br/>the games disjoin<br/><br/>children lovely as violets<br/>dance like waves<br/><br/>24<br/>
violettes rouges<br/><br/>les flèches fanent dans leur vol<br/><br/>les ailes se perdent vers le monde des feuilles<br/><br/>ailes et feuilles se confondent<br/><br/>des étoiles servent de grains de beauté<br/>au ciel profond comme tes yeux<br/>la cour des fleurs se cajole et rit<br/>dans une lumière agenouillée<br/><br/>la chaîne des mirages se brise<br/>au nuage incrusté de baisers<br/>une journée embaumée<br/>tombe d’une bosse de fruits<br/>des griffes lâchent un menu larcin<br/><br/>un nuage vert danse sur deux jambes d’éclairs<br/>ensuite les violettes poussent plus vite<br/>des enfants beaux comme des violettes<br/>dansent comme des nuages<br/><br/>des petits plus petits que d’ordinaire<br/>s’entretiennent avec un petit invisible<br/>j’oublie mon corps<br/>le vivant se joint au mort<br/>les jeux se disjoignent<br/><br/>des enfants beaux comme des violettes<br/>dansent comme des vagues<br/><br/>25<br/>
they leap faster and faster<br/><br/>they dance with force and exasperated vigor<br/><br/>they upset the cleft-footed and the he-virgin<br/><br/>everything turns rolls races<br/><br/>the violets turn red<br/><br/>the day is cradled in its fluidities<br/>its crowns of light<br/>its imperishable foliage<br/>the evening holds out a star to me<br/>and sophie shakes the dream flower<br/>in the bell of the sky<br/>•<br/><br/>meudon 1945 from “siege de lair”<br/><br/>26<br/>
ils accélèrent leurs sauts<br/><br/>ils dansent avec force et vigueur exaspérée<br/><br/>ils renversent le fourchu et le vierge<br/><br/>tout tourne roule se précipite<br/><br/>les violettes deviennent rouges<br/><br/>le jour se berce dans ses fluidités<br/>ses couronnes de lumière<br/>ses feuillages impérissables<br/>le soir me tend une étoile<br/>et sophie agite la fleur du rêve<br/>dans la cloche du ciel<br/><br/>•<br/><br/>meudon 1945 du siège de l'air”<br/><br/>27<br/>
sophie<br/><br/>What was your dream<br/>when you left this shore.<br/><br/>Did you dream of a raft of stars adrift,<br/>did you dream of a gulf of candor?<br/><br/>•<br/><br/>You pushed aside the intransigent spheres<br/>to pick a flower.<br/><br/>You were resonant with a world of light.<br/><br/>Butterflies represent a scene of your life<br/>in which the dawn awakens on your lips.<br/><br/>A star takes shape according to your design<br/><br/>The curtain of day falls on the dreams<br/>You are a star changing into a flower<br/>The light slips beneath your feet<br/>Radiant wings surround you like a hedge<br/><br/>The flower is cradled on your wings.<br/><br/>It wears a jewel of dew.<br/><br/>It dreams a tear of sensibility.<br/><br/>Its kisses are pearls.<br/><br/>•<br/><br/>It vanishes, it vanishes,<br/><br/>in its own light.<br/><br/>It vanishes, it vanishes<br/><br/>in its purity and gentleness.<br/><br/>28<br/>
Sophie<br/><br/>Quel était ton rêve<br/>lorsque tu quittas cette rive.<br/><br/>Rêvais-tu d’un radeau d’étoiles à la dérive,<br/>rêvais-tu d’un abîme de candeur?<br/><br/>Tu écartais les sphères intransigeantes<br/>pour cueillir une fleur.<br/><br/>Tu résonnais d’un monde de clarté.<br/><br/>•<br/><br/>Des papillons représentent une scène de ta vie<br/>où l’aurore s’éveille sur tes lèvres.<br/><br/>Une étoile se forme selon ton dessin.<br/><br/>•<br/><br/>Le rideau du jour tombe sur les rêves.<br/><br/>Tu es une étoile qui se transforme en fleur.<br/><br/>La lumière se glisse sous tes pieds.<br/><br/>Des ailes rayonnantes t’entourent comme une haie.<br/><br/>•<br/><br/>La fleur se berce sur ses ailes.<br/><br/>Elle porte un joyau de rosée.<br/><br/>Elle rêve d’une larme de finesse.<br/><br/>Ses baisers sont des perles.<br/><br/>•<br/><br/>Elle disparait, elle disparait,<br/>dans sa propre lumière.<br/><br/>Elle disparait, elle disparait<br/><br/>dans sa pureté et sa douceur.<br/><br/>29<br/>
You dreamed upon the finger of the sky,<br/>amid the last flakes of night.<br/><br/>The earth was covered with tears of joy.<br/>The day awoke in a crystal hand.<br/><br/>•<br/><br/>basel 1946 (unpublished)<br/><br/>30<br/>
Tu rêvais sur le doigt du ciel,<br/>parmi les derniers flocons de nuit.<br/><br/>La terre se couvrait de larmes de joie.<br/><br/>Le jour se réveillait dans une main de cristal.<br/><br/>•<br/><br/>bâle 1946 (inédit)<br/><br/>31<br/>
<br/>
Essays<br/>
<br/><br/>
The measure of all things<br/><br/>Man behaves as if he had created the world and could play with it. Pretty<br/>much at the beginning of his glorious development he coined the saying that<br/>man was the measure of all things. Then he quickly went to work and turned<br/>as much of the world as he could upside down. The Venus de Milo lies shat-<br/>tered on the ground. Man has measured with the measure of all things, him-<br/>self, measured and presumed. He has tailored and pruned away at beauty.<br/>This cutting to measure gave rise to a fashion shop, the fashion shop gave rise<br/>to madness in all its forms. Confusion, unrest, nonsense, insanity and frenzy<br/>dominate the world. Foetuses with geometric double heads, human bodies<br/>with yellow hippopotamuses heads, fan-shaped monsters with trunks like ele-<br/>phants, stomachs with teeth on crutches, corpulent or emaciated pyramids<br/>with dragging feet and tears in their eyes, clods of earth with sex organs, etc.,<br/>have appeared in painting and statuary.<br/><br/>Beauty has not vanished beneath the ruins of the centuries<br/><br/>When the personality, the intellect, philosophy arose from the legendary<br/>depths of mythical humanity, when nature was discovered by man, when “the<br/>earth, the wavy sea, the moist air and the Titan Ether,” were solemnly sung,<br/>beauty dwelt naked among men.<br/><br/>In every century beauty changed. Beauty did not vanish beneath the ruins<br/>of the centuries, it vanished into the Maya, into the mirage. So many rare and<br/>priceless garments had been showered upon her, she no longer knew in which<br/>to show herself.<br/><br/>Which is the original image of beauty? Which is the image “of beauty’s<br/>gushing fountain, the picture that flows from the source . . . ”? Is it the naked<br/>corporeality of the Greeks, is it the disguise, the veil, the pageant of the Renais-<br/>sance, is it the disembodied yearning of Gothic, is it the cube and the sphere,<br/>is it the love and the harmony of which Empedocles said: “There were no two<br/>arms extending from a trunk, nor were there feet or swift knees or organs of<br/>procreation; there was a sphairos the same in all its aspects.”<br/><br/>Deception, appearance, artifice<br/><br/>Man became a childish demiurge, a childish creator. In his megalomania,<br/>he wanted to create God and the world a second time. A loathsome bickering<br/><br/>35<br/>
arose among the demiurges, their disunity grew to hatred. Every painter,<br/>every sculptor wanted to be the most astonishing of creators. Anonymity and<br/>humility were replaced by fame and artifice.<br/><br/>Man has lost his feeling for beauty. He has become unreal. In place of pyra-<br/>mids, temples, cathedrals, he produces deception, appearance, artifice.<br/><br/>Reality<br/><br/>Our works are structures of lines, surfaces, forms, colors. They attempt to<br/>approach reality. They hate artifice, vanity, imitation, tight-rope walking.<br/>To be sure, there are tight-rope walkers of varying talent. But art should lead<br/>to the spiritual, the real. This reality is neither objective reality, nor the sub-<br/>jective reality of thought, that is, ideality, but a mystical reality, toward which<br/>we stand in the relation of the eye in the following Neoplatonic image: “It<br/>removes itself from light in order to see the darkness, but it does not see; for<br/>it cannot see the darkness when there is light, but without light it does not<br/>see; by not seeing, it sees the darkness in the way that is natural to it.”<br/><br/>Above and below<br/><br/>In former times man knew the meaning of above and below, he knew what<br/>was eternal and what was transitory. Man did not yet stand on his head. His<br/>houses had a floor, walls and a ceiling. The Renaissance transformed the ceil-<br/>ing into a fools’ heaven, the walls into garden mazes, and the floor into the<br/>bottomless. Man has lost his sense of reality, the mystical, the determinate in-<br/>determinable, the greatest determinate of all.<br/><br/>A part of reality<br/><br/>Constructive art glorifies the modern, material world, progress, the ma-<br/>chine. Neo-plastic art breaks away from the material world. A few vertical<br/>and horizontal lines, two, three colors and a “balance” are all that is left of it.<br/>In reply to an Anglo-Saxon visitor who asked if he always painted squares,<br/>Mondrian replied: “Squares? I see no squares in my pictures.” Thus even<br/>squares and right angles were no longer tolerated in the world of the fine<br/><br/>36<br/>
arts. The first Neo-plastic pictures were painted in 1917 and 1918. We first<br/>saw reproductions of the work of Mondrian, Doesburg, Vantongerloo in<br/>Zurich around 1920.<br/><br/>Our very first concrete works made a final break with change, the flow of<br/>all things, to which man too is subjected, hence with nature, the visual world,<br/>which is after all only a part of reality.<br/><br/>Holy silence<br/><br/>Soon silence will have passed into legend. Man has turned away from si-<br/>lence. Every day he invents machines and gadgets that multiply noise and<br/>distract man from essential life, from reflection, from spiritual immersion.<br/>Motor-car, airplane, radio, atom bomb are the latest great victories of progress.<br/>Man today has nothing essential to do, but he wants to do this nothing with<br/>speed and superhuman noise. He wants to be distracted, and fails to suspect<br/>that the robot who now holds the reins is driving him to the meaningless. In<br/>the midst of all the horn-blowing, howling, screeching, thundering, crashing,<br/>whistling, gnashing and chirping, he feels confident. His anxiety is calmed.<br/>His inhuman emptiness grows like a monstrous gray plant.<br/><br/>Dreamers<br/><br/>Today only a few dreamers continue to sacrifice their lives for the sake of<br/>clarity. They eat badly and sleep on hard beds. They suffer heat and cold.<br/>But when the wings of light flutter round them all the misery of their lives<br/>falls off, and in their bare cells they sing and proclaim the real suns, the real<br/>life.<br/><br/>Dada was more than a kettle-drum, a big noise and a joke. Dada protested<br/>against the stupidity and vanity of mankind. Among the Dadaists there were<br/>martyrs and believers, who sacrificed their lives in the search for life and<br/>beauty. Ball was one of these great dreamers. He dreamed and believed in<br/>poetry and the image. In Flucht aus der Zeit (“Flight from the Times”), Hugo<br/>Ball writes: “The word and the image are one. Painters and poets belong<br/>together. Christ is image and word. The word and the image have been cruci-<br/>fied.” Malevitch painted the crucified image, and for this he was crucified by<br/>the Russians. The dreamers are still living in the catacombs within the image,<br/>the word, and music.<br/><br/>37<br/>
introduction to max ernst’s natural history<br/><br/>this introduction contains the pseudo-introduction the original the vari-<br/>ants of the original the pseudo-original as well as the variants of the pseudo-<br/>original the apocrypha and the incorporation of all these texts in an original<br/>arpocryphum with apocopated whiskers as well as fifty calcinated medals and<br/>fifty suns of fifty years because the medal rises. — the medal of light rises. —<br/>fifty suns and fifty medals rise. — the wheels turn. — the wheels turn. — fifty<br/>suns and fifty medals rise while the pseudo-sun after fifty years of service re-<br/>tires into the calcinated wheels of light. — the wheels turn no more. — the<br/>wheels turn no more.<br/><br/>it is man who has replaced alarm-clocks by earthquakes showers of jordan<br/>almonds by showers of hail, the shadow of man encountering the shadow of a<br/>fly causes a flood, thus it is man who has taught horses to embrace one another<br/>like presidents kings or emperors sucking each other’s beards licking each<br/>other’s snouts plunging their tongues into patriotic profundities, the passerby<br/>who sees these equine kisses thinks that peace has been established on earth<br/>forever.<br/><br/>with his eleven and a half tails of cotton his eight legs of bread his hundred<br/>eyes of air his four hearts of stone he goes a-hunting the flying cyclopean<br/>moustache without any limbs, but as this moustache is actually intelligible<br/>the hunter always comes home baffled, with the help of his eleven and a half<br/>tails man counts ten and a half objects in the furnished room of the universe:<br/>scarecrows with volcanoes and geysers in their buttonhole show cases of erup-<br/>tions displays of lava string systems of solar currency labeled abdomens walls<br/>razed by poets the palettes of the caesars thoroughly still (and dead) lives the<br/>stables of the sphynxes the eyes of the man turned to stone while squinting at<br/>sodom the scars of . . .<br/><br/>enter the continents without knocking but with a muzzle of filigree<br/><br/>leaves never grow on the trees, like a mountain in bird’s-eye view they have<br/>no perspective no soap no hybrid plastron no scotch cheeks no crypt, the spec-<br/>tator always finds himself in a false position before a leaf, he has the impression<br/>of carrying his head in his umbilicus his feet in his mouth his unwashed eyes<br/>in his hands, as for the branches trunks and roots I declare them to be fan-<br/>tasmagorias bald men’s lies, branches trunks and roots do not exist.<br/><br/>like a lion who scents a succulent pair of newly-weds the seismic plant de-<br/>sires to make a meal of the dead man. in his millennial den made up as a foetus<br/>it whirls with lust like the white juice of the end with the black juice of the<br/>start and the ferocity of its gaze chases the navels around the earth, the lime-<br/>tree grows tractably on boarded plains, the chestnut and the oak start out<br/><br/>38<br/>
under the banner of d.a.d.a. that is to say, domine anno domine anno, the cy-<br/>press is not a dancer’s calf in the ecclesiastical ballet.<br/><br/>while the ferocious lion scents a succulent pair of newly-weds the lime-<br/>tree grows tractably on the boarded plains, when a traveler and a mountain<br/>meet in the sky they become confounded with one another, the mountain takes<br/>itself for the traveler and the traveler takes himself for the mountain, these<br/>encounters always end in a bloody brawl in which the traveler and the moun-<br/>tain tear out each other’s trees, the chestnut and the oak start out under the<br/>sign of the vegetable banner, the cypress is a dancer’s calf in an ecclesiastical<br/>ballet.<br/><br/>the idol dreams in the sea and the rain, harnessed in fours ahead of the four<br/>preceding like ventriloquists’ cemeteries or fields of honor the insects emerge.<br/><br/>and now only eve remains to us. she is the white accomplice of newspaper<br/>filchers. here is the cuckoo the origin of the clock, the sound of his jaws is like<br/>the sound of a violent fall of hair, and so we count among the insects vacci-<br/>nated bread the chorus of cells lightning flashes under fourteen years of age<br/>and your humble servant.<br/><br/>the marine sky has been decorated by expressionist paperhangers who have<br/>hung a shawl with frost-flowers on the zenith, in the season of the harvest of<br/>conjugal diamonds huge cupboards with mirrors are found floating on their<br/>back in the oceans, the mirrors of these cupboards are replaced by waxed<br/>floors and the cupboard itself by a castle in Spain, these mirrored cupboards<br/>are rented as rings to midwives and storks to make their innumerable rounds<br/>in and as tabourets to two gigantic rusty feet which rest upon them and some-<br/>times tap a few steps pam pam. that is why the seas are called pampas because<br/>pam means pas (step) and two pas make pam pam.<br/><br/>and so you see that one’s honorable father can be consumed only slice by<br/>slice, impossible to finish him in a single luncheon on the grass and even the<br/>lemon falls on its knees before the beauty of nature, [illustration 1]<br/><br/>Dadaland<br/><br/>In Zurich in 1915, losing interest in the slaughterhouses of the world war,<br/>we turned to the Fine Arts. While the thunder of the batteries rumbled in the<br/>distance, we pasted, we recited, we versified, we sang with all our soul. We<br/>searched for an elementary art that would, we thought, save mankind from<br/>the furious folly of these times. We aspired to a new order that might restore<br/>the balance between heaven and hell. This art gradually became an object of<br/>general reprobation. Is it surprising that the “bandits” could not understand<br/><br/>39<br/>
us? Their puerile mania for authoritarianism expects art itself to serve the<br/>stultification of mankind.<br/><br/>The Renaissance taught men the haughty exaltation of their reason. Modern<br/>times, with their science and technology turned men towards megalomania.<br/>The confusion of our epoch results from this overestimation of reason. We<br/>wanted an anonymous and collective art. Here is what I wrote on the occasion<br/>of an exhibition we put on in Zurich in 1915: “These works are constructed<br/>with lines, surfaces, forms and colors. They strive to surpass the human and<br/>achieve the infinite and the eternal. They are a negation of man’s egotism.<br/>. . . The hands of our brothers, instead of serving us as our own hands, had<br/>become enemy hands. Instead of anonymity there was celebrity and the<br/>masterpiece; wisdom was dead. . . . To reproduce is to imitate, to play a<br/>comedy, to walk the tight-rope. ...”<br/><br/>In 1915 Sophie Taeuber and I made in painting, embroidery and collage<br/>the first works derived from the simplest forms. These are probably the very<br/>first manifestations of this art. These pictures are Realities in themselves,<br/>without meaning or cerebral intention. We rejected everything that was copy<br/>or description, and allowed the Elementary and Spontaneous to react in full<br/>freedom. Since the disposition of planes, and the proportions and colors of<br/>these planes seemed to depend purely on chance, I declared that these works,<br/>like nature, were ordered “according to the law of chance,” chance being for<br/>me merely a limited part of an unfathomable raison d’être, of an order inacces-<br/>sible in its totality. Various Russian and Dutch artists who at that time were<br/>producing works rather close to ours in appearance, were pursuing quite<br/>different intentions. They are in fact a homage to modern life, a profession<br/>of faith in the machine and technology. Though treated in an abstract man-<br/>ner, they retain a base of naturalism and of “trompe l’œil.”<br/><br/>From 1916 to 1920 Sophie Taeuber danced in Zurich. I shall quote the<br/>beautiful lines that Hugo Ball wrote about her in an essay entitled “Occultism<br/>and other things rare and beautiful”: “All around her is the radiance of the<br/>sun and the miracle that replaces tradition. She is full of invention, caprice,<br/>fantasy. She danced to the ‘Song of the Flying Fishes and the Hippocamps,’<br/>an onomatopoetic plaint. It was a dance full of flashes and fishbones, of daz-<br/>zling lights, a dance of penetrating intensity. The lines of her body break,<br/>every gesture decomposes into a hundred precise, angular, incisive move-<br/>ments. The buffoonery of perspective, lighting and atmosphere is for her<br/>hypersensitive nervous system the pretext for drollery full of irony and wit.<br/>The figures of her dance are at once mysterious, grotesque and ecstatic. . . . ”<br/><br/>I met Eggeling in Paris in 1915 at the studio of Madame Wassilieff, who in<br/><br/>40<br/>
2: Janco, Cabaret Voltaire.<br/><br/>i: Ernst, Collage.<br/><br/>3 and 4: Janco, Reliefs.<br/><br/>41<br/>
<br/><br/><br/><br/>S’ Giacometti, Summer Night.<br/><br/><br/><br/><br/><br/>6: Eggehng, Diagonal Symphony.<br/><br/>42<br/>
i<br/><br/>
g: Plant Organism<br/>
her two studios had set up canteens where artists could eat supper for very<br/>little money. Our friends on leave from the front spoke to us of the war, and<br/>when the gloom was too great a young woman with a pleasant voice sang: En<br/>passant par la Lorraine avec mes sabots ... A drunken Swede accompanied<br/>her on the piano. Every night my brother and I walked several miles from<br/>Montmartre to the Gare Montparnasse, where Wassilieff’s studio was located,<br/>through the darkness of Paris menaced by the Germans. Eggeling lived in a<br/>damp and sinister studio on the Boulevard Raspail. Across from him lived<br/>Modigliani, who often came to see him, to recite Dante and get drunk. He<br/>also took cocaine. One night it was decided that along with several other in-<br/>nocents I should be initiated into the “paradis artificiels.” Each of us gave<br/>Modigliani several francs with which to lay in a store of the drug. We waited<br/>for hours. Finally he returned, hilarious and sniffling, having consumed the<br/>whole supply by himself. Eggeling did not paint much at that time; for hours<br/>he would discuss art. I met him again in 1917 in Zurich. He was searching for<br/>the rules of a plastic counterpoint, composing and drawing its first elements.<br/>He tormented himself almost to death. On great rolls of paper he had set<br/>down a sort of hieratic writing with the help of figures of rare proportion and<br/>beauty. These figures grew, subdivided, multiplied, moved, intertwined from<br/>one group to another, vanished and partly reappeared, organized themselves<br/>into an impressive construction with plantlike forms. He called this work<br/>a “Symphony.” He died in 1922. With his friend Hans Richter he had just fin-<br/>ished adapting his invention to the cinema.<br/><br/>Secretly, in his quiet little room, Janco devoted himself to a “naturalism<br/>in zigzag.” I forgive him this secret vice because in one of his paintings he<br/>evoked and commemorated the “Cabaret Voltaire.” On a platform in an<br/>overcrowded room, splotched with color, are seated several fantastic char-<br/>acters who are supposed to represent Tzara, Janco, Ball, Huelsenbeck, Mad-<br/>ame Hennings, and your humble servant. We are putting on one of our big<br/>Sabbaths. The people around us are shouting, laughing, gesticulating. We<br/>reply with sighs of love, salvos of hiccups, poems, and the bow-wows and<br/>meows of mediaeval bruitists. Tzara makes his bottom jump like the belly<br/>of an oriental dancer. Janco plays an invisible violin and bows down to the<br/>ground. Madame Hennings with a face like a madonna attempts a split.<br/>Huelsenbeck keeps pounding on a big drum, while Ball, pale as a plaster<br/>dummy, accompanies him on the piano. The honorific title of nihilists was be-<br/>stowed on us. The directors of public cretinization conferred this name on<br/>all those who did not follow in their path. The great matadors of the “Dadaist<br/>Movement” were Ball and Tzara. Ball in my opinion is one of the greatest<br/>German writers. He was a long, dry man with the face of a pater dolorosus.<br/><br/>45<br/>
Tzara at that time wrote the Vingt-Cinq Poèmes, which belong to the best<br/>in French poetry. Later we were joined by Dr. Serner, adventurer, writer of<br/>detective stories, ballroom dancer, physician specializing in skin diseases, and<br/>gentleman burglar.<br/><br/>I met Tzara and Serner at the Odéon and at the Café de la Terrasse in<br/>Zurich, where we wrote a cycle of poems: Hyperbole of the crocodile-barber<br/>and the walking cane. This type of poem was later baptized “Automatic<br/>Poetry” by the Surrealists. Automatic poetry issues straight from the entrails<br/>of the poet or from any other organ that has stored up reserves. Neither the<br/>Postillion de Longjumeau nor the Alexandrine, nor grammar, nor aesthetics,<br/>nor Buddha, nor the Sixth Commandment can interfere with it in the least.<br/>It crows, curses, sighs, stammers, yodels, just as it pleases. Its poems are like<br/>nature: they stink, laugh, rhyme, like nature. It esteems foolishness, or at<br/>least what men call foolishness, as highly as sublime rhetoric, for in nature a<br/>broken twig is equal to the stars in beauty and importance, and it is men who<br/>decree what is beautiful and what is ugly.<br/><br/>Dada objects are formed of elements found or manufactured, simple or<br/>heteroclite. The Chinese several thousand years ago, Duchamp, Picabia in<br/>the United States, Schwitters and myself during the war of 1914, were the<br/>first to invent and disseminate these games of wisdom and clairvoyance which<br/>were to cure human beings of the raging madness of genius and return them<br/>modestly to their rightful place in nature. The natural beauty of these ob-<br/>jects is inherent in them as in a bunch of flowers gathered by children. Several<br/>thousand years ago, an emperor of China sent his artists out to the most dis-<br/>tant lands to search for stones of rare and fantastic forms which he collected<br/>and placed on a pedestal beside his vases and his gods. It is obvious that this<br/>game will not appeal to our modern thinkers of the go-getter school, who lie<br/>in wait for the art-lover like hotel porters waiting at the station for guests.<br/><br/>Are you still singing that diabolical song about the mill at Hirza-Pirza,<br/>shaking your gypsy curls with wild laughter, my dear Janco? I haven’t for-<br/>gotten the masks you used to make for our Dada demonstrations. They were<br/>terrifying, most of them daubed with bloody red. Out of cardboard, paper,<br/>horsehair, wire and cloth, you made your languorous foetuses, your Lesbian<br/>sardines, your ecstatic mice. In 1917 Janco did some abstract works which<br/>have grown in importance ever since. He was a passionate man with faith in<br/>the evolution of art.<br/><br/>Auguste Giacometti was already a success in 1916, yet he had a liking for<br/>the Dadaists and often took part in their demonstrations. He looked like a<br/>prosperous bear and, doubtless out of sympathy for the bears of his country,<br/><br/>46<br/>
wore a bearskin cap. One o£ his friends confided to me that he had a well-<br/>garnished bankbook hidden in the lining of his cap. On the occasion of a<br/>Dada festival, he gave us a souvenir thirty yards long, painted in the colors of<br/>the rainbow and covered with sublime inscriptions. One evening we decided<br/>to give Dada a little modest private publicity. Going from one beer hall to<br/>another on the Limmatkai, he carefully opened the door, shouted in a loud<br/>precise voice: “Vive Dada!” and closed the door just as carefully. The diners<br/>gaped dropping their sausages. What could be the meaning of this mysterious<br/>cry from the mouth of a mature, respectable-looking man who didn’t look at<br/>all like a charlatan or a métèque. At this period Giacometti painted stars of<br/>flowers, cosmic conflagrations, tongues of flame, fiery pits. For us the interest<br/>of his paintings lies in that they proceed from pure color and imagination.<br/>Giacometti is also the first who attempted to create a moving object; this<br/>he did with a clock metamorphosed by the addition of forms and colors. In<br/>spite of the war, it was a delightful period, and we shall look back on it as an<br/>idyll in the next world war when, transformed into hamburger steak, we shall<br/>be scattered to the four winds, [illustrations 2-8]<br/><br/>I became more and more removed from aesthetics<br/><br/>I became more and more removed from aesthetics. I wanted to find another<br/>order, another value for man in nature. He was no longer to be the measure<br/>of all things, no longer to reduce everything to his own measure, but on the<br/>contrary, all things and man were to be like nature, without measure. I wanted<br/>to create new appearances, extract new forms from man. This tendency took<br/>shape in 1917 in my “objects.” Alexandre Partens wrote of them in the Al-<br/>manack Dada: “It was the distinction of Jean Arp to have at a certain moment<br/>discovered the true problem in the craft itself. This allowed him to feed it<br/>with a new, spiritual imagination. He was no longer interested in improving,<br/>formulating, specifying an aesthetic system. He wanted immediate and direct<br/>production, like a stone breaking away from a cliff, a bud bursting, an animal<br/>reproducing. He wanted objects impregnated with imagination and not<br/>museum pieces, he wanted animalesque objects with wild intensities and<br/>colors, he wanted a new body among us which would suffice unto itself, an<br/>object which would be just as well off squatting on the corners of tables as<br/>nestling in the depths of the garden or staring at us from the wall. ... To<br/>him the frame and later the pedestal seemed to be useless crutches. ...”<br/><br/>Even in my childhood, the pedestal enabling a statue to stand, the frame<br/>enclosing the picture like a window, were for me occasions for merriment<br/><br/>47<br/>
and mischief, moving me to all sorts of tricks. One day I attempted to paint<br/>on a windowpane a blue sky under the houses that I saw through the window.<br/>Thus the houses seemed to hang in mid-air. Sometimes I took our pictures<br/>out of their frames and looked with pleasure at these windows hanging on the<br/>wall. Another time I hung up a frame in a little wooden shack, and sawed a<br/>hole in the wall behind the frame, disclosing a charming landscape animated<br/>by men and cattle. I asked my father for his opinion of the work I had just<br/>completed. He gave me a strange, somewhat surprised look. As a child I also<br/>took pleasure in standing on the pedestal of a statue that had collapsed and<br/>mimicking the attitude of a modest nymph.<br/><br/>Here are a few of the names of my Dadaist objects: Adam’s Head, Articulat-<br/>ing Comma, Parrot Imitating the Thunder, Mountain with Shirtfront of<br/>Ice, Spelling Furniture, Eggboard, Navel Bottle. The fragility of life and hu-<br/>man works was converted with the Dadaists into black humor. No sooner is a<br/>building, a monument completed than it begins to decay, fall apart, decom-<br/>pose, crumble. The pyramids, temples, cathedrals, the paintings of the masters,<br/>are convincing proof of this. And the buzzing of man does not last much<br/>longer than the buzzing of the fly spiraling so enthusiastically around my<br/>baba au rhum.<br/><br/>Dada aimed to destroy the reasonable deceptions of man and recover the<br/>natural and unreasonable order. Dada wanted to replace the logical nonsense<br/>of the men of today by the illogically senseless. That is why we pounded with<br/>all our might on the big drum of Dada and trumpeted the praises of unreason.<br/>Dada gave the Venus de Milo an enema and permitted Laocoon and his sons<br/>to relieve themselves after thousands of years of struggle with the good sau-<br/>sage Python. Philosophies have less value for Dada than an old abandoned<br/>toothbrush, and Dada abandons them to the great world leaders. Dada de-<br/>nounced the infernal ruses of the official vocabulary of wisdom. Dada is for<br/>the senseless, which does not mean nonsense. Dada is senseless like nature.<br/>Dada is for nature and against art. Dada is direct like nature. Dada is for infi-<br/>nite sense and definite means.<br/><br/>The navel bottle<br/><br/>The bourgeois regarded the Dadaist as a dissolute monster, a revolutionary<br/>villain, a barbarous Asiatic, plotting against his bells, his safe-deposits, his<br/>honors. The Dadaist thought up tricks to rob the bourgeois of his sleep. He<br/>sent false reports to the newspapers of hair-raising Dada duels, in which his<br/>favorite author, the “King of Bernina,” was said to be involved. The Dadaist<br/><br/>48<br/>
gave the bourgeois a sense of confusion and distant, yet mighty rumbling, so<br/>that his bells began to buzz, his safes frowned, and his honors broke out in<br/>spots. “The Eggboard,” a game for the upper ten thousand, in which the<br/>participants leave the arena covered with egg yolk from top to toe; “The<br/>Navel Bottle,” a monstrous home furnishing in which bicycle, whale, bras-<br/>sière and absinthe spoon are combined; “The Glove,” which can be worn in<br/>place of the old-fashioned head — were devised to show the bourgeois the<br/>unreality of his world, the nullity of his endeavors, even of his extremely<br/>profitable patrioteerings. This of course was a naive undertaking on our part,<br/>since actually the bourgeois has less imagination than a worm, and in place of<br/>a heart has an over-life-size corn which twitches in times of approaching storm<br/>— on the stock exchange.<br/><br/>Talk<br/><br/>When Dada revealed its eternal wisdom to man, man laughed indulgently<br/>and went on talking. Man talks enough to make the very rats sick to their<br/>stomach. While his voracity forces him to stuff into his mouth everything that<br/>fails to evade his claws, he still manages to talk. He talks so much that the day<br/>darkens and the night pales with fright. He talks so much that the sea runs<br/>dry and the desert turns to swamp. The main thing for him is to talk, for talk<br/>is healthy ventilation. After a fine speech he feels very hungry and changes his<br/>mind. At the same time he assumes the noble attitude of rotten meat. Man de-<br/>clares red what he called green the day before and what in reality is black. He<br/>is forever making definitive statements on life, man and art, and he has no more<br/>idea than the mushroom what life, man and art actually are.<br/><br/>Son of light<br/><br/>Man hidden away in his vanity like a mole in his hill no longer understands<br/>the language of light which fills the sky with its inconceivable immensity.<br/>Man believes himself to be the summit of creation. The face of light does<br/>not perturb him. He confounds himself with light. This toad likes to call<br/>himself the son of light.<br/><br/>Man owes it to his incongruously developed reason that he is grotesque and<br/>ugly. He has broken away from nature. He thinks that he dominates nature.<br/>He thinks he is the measure of all things. Engendering in opposition to the<br/>laws of nature, man creates monstrosities. He desires that of which he is in-<br/><br/>49<br/>
capable, and despises what is within his powers. The artificial and the mon-<br/>strous seem to him the goal of perfection. Whatever he can achieve, he covers<br/>with blood and mud. Only in the monstrous is man creative; those unfit for<br/>this work compose verses, strum the lyre or brandish the paint brush. This<br/>last group devote themselves with enigmatic frenzy to the painting of still-<br/>lives, landscapes, nudes. Since the days of the caves, man has been painting<br/>still-lives, landscapes, nudes. Since the days of the caves, man has glorified<br/>and deified himself, and has brought about human catastrophes by his mon-<br/>strous vanity. Art has collaborated in his false development. To me the con-<br/>ception of art that has upheld the vanity of man is sickening.<br/><br/>Man loves what is vain and dead<br/><br/>In art also man loves what is vain and dead. He cannot understand that<br/>painting is something other than a landscape prepared with oil and vinegar,<br/>and sculpture something other than a woman’s thigh made out of marble<br/>or bronze. Any living transformation of art seems to him as detestable as<br/>the eternal metamorphoses of life. Straight lines and honest colors exasperate<br/>him above all. Man doesn’t want to get to the bottom of things. The radiance<br/>of the universe makes his degeneration and ugliness too apparent. That is<br/>why man clings desperately to graceful garlands and makes himself a special-<br/>ist in values. Out of his nine openings framed in curls, man exhales blue<br/>vapor, gray fog, black smoke. Sometimes he tries like a fly to walk on the<br/>ceiling, but he always fails and falls with a crash on the table covered with<br/>the best crockery.<br/><br/>Man calls the concrete abstract. This is not surprising, for he commonly<br/>confuses front and back even when using his nose, his mouth, his ears, that<br/>is to say, five of his nine openings. I understand that a cubist painting might<br/>be called abstract, for parts of the object serving as model for the picture have<br/>been abstracted. But in my opinion a picture or a sculpture without any object<br/>for model is just as concrete and sensual as a leaf or a stone.<br/><br/>Art is a fruit<br/><br/>Art is a fruit that grows in man, like a fruit on a plant, or a child in its<br/>mother’s womb. But whereas the fruit of the plant, the fruit of the animal, the<br/>fruit in the mother’s womb, assume autonomous and natural forms, art, the<br/>spiritual fruit of man, usually shows an absurd resemblance to the aspect of<br/><br/>5°<br/>
something else. Only in our own epoch have painting and sculpture been liber-<br/>ated from the aspect of a mandolin, a president in a Prince Albert, a battle, a<br/>landscape. I love nature, but not its substitutes. Naturalist, illusionist art is a<br/>substitute for nature.<br/><br/>I remember a discussion with Mondrian in which he distinguished between<br/>art and nature, saying that art is artificial and nature natural. I do not share<br/>his opinion. I believe that nature is not in opposition to art. Art is of natural<br/>origin and is sublimated and spiritualized through the sublimation of man.<br/>[illustrations 9, 10, 14]<br/><br/>A few lines of Plotinus<br/><br/>For those among men whose souls have gone beyond that of centipedes, spi-<br/>ders, snails, flies, leeches, bankers, politicians, and who wish to approach<br/>beauty and light, I quote these few lines of Plotinus: “It is first of all necessary<br/>to make the organ of vision analogous and similar to the object to be con-<br/>templated. Never would the eye have perceived the sun if it had not first taken<br/>the form of the sun; likewise, the soul cannot see beauty unless it first becomes<br/>beautiful itself, and every man must make himself beautiful and divine in<br/>order to attain the sight of beauty and divinity.”<br/><br/>Some old friends<br/><br/>Some old friends from the days of the Dada campaign, who always fought for<br/>dreams and freedom, are now disgustingly preoccupied with class aims and<br/>busy making over the Hegelian dialectic into a hurdygurdy tune. Conscien-<br/>tiously they mix poetry and the Five Year Plan in one pot; but this attempt to<br/>lie down while standing up will not succeed. Man will not allow himself to<br/>be turned into a scrubbed, hygienic numeral, which, in its enthusiasm over<br/>a certain portrait, shouts yes like a hypnotized donkey. Man will not permit<br/>himself to be standardized. It is hard to explain how the greatest individual-<br/>ists can come out for a termite state. I cannot imagine my old friends in a col-<br/>lective Russian ballet.<br/><br/>A magic treasure<br/><br/>Only spirit, dream, art lead to a true collectivity. They are the games that<br/>lead man into real life. Hugo Ball’s dream resurrects man to reality from his<br/><br/>51<br/>
mysterious corporeality. We should like him pray every day for dreams. The<br/>dream, which is Hugo Ball’s art, is a magic treasure; it connects man with the<br/>life of light and darkness, with real life, the real collectivity.<br/><br/>See reproduction<br/><br/>The black grows deeper and deeper, darker and darker before me. It men-<br/>aces me like a black gullet. I can bear it no longer. It is monstrous. It is un-<br/>fathomable.<br/><br/>As the thought comes to me to exorcise and transform this black with a<br/>white drawing, it has already become a surface. Now I have lost all fear, and<br/>begin to draw on the black surface. I draw and dance at once, twisting and<br/>winding, a winding, twining, soft white flowery round. A round of snakes in<br/>a wreath . . . white shoots dart this way and that. Three of them begin to<br/>form snakes’ heads. Cautiously the two lower ones approach one another. See<br/>reproduction, [illustration 11]<br/><br/>The magician<br/><br/>The sale of my first relief in Paris in 1926 was black magic. The magician<br/>was Viot, the art dealer. He had ensnared D., the collector, with promising<br/>speeches about indescribable beauty, and lured him to my studio. Looking<br/>very unhappy, D. weighed my little relief, first in his left, then in his right<br/>hand. He seemed to find no objection to the weight. Around his beautiful mi-<br/>ser’s neck he wore a still more beautiful necktie.1 He twisted and fidgeted. He<br/>struggled to make up his mind. He opened his eyes wide and then wearily<br/>closed them. He opened them again and looked madly for some chance to es-<br/>cape. Now was the time to be on our guard. He really seemed about to seek<br/>safety in flight. With ruffled crest, Viot swaggered round his victim. He<br/>bragged and boasted of his incomparable knowledge of the arts. D. groaned:<br/>“Five hundred francs is a lot of money for a little piece of wood!” Viot did<br/>not lessen his efforts. Now it was the dark and mysterious that filled his sails.<br/>His eyes gleamed like two magic lanterns. His eloquence became more and<br/>more daemonic until at length D. collapsed in a chair and handed Viot the five<br/>hundred francs.<br/><br/>1. Geizhals, literally “avarice neck,” is German for skinflint.<br/><br/>52<br/>
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ii: Vegetation.<br/><br/>54<br/>
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57<br/>
14• Pre-Adamic Fruit.<br/>
J5 a, b: Two views of Arp's studio.<br/><br/>59<br/>
i6: Creative Metop<br/>
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iy: Shell,<br/><br/>62<br/>
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i8: Birdlike Cloud.<br/><br/>64<br/>
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ig:, Taeuber-Arp, Summery Lines.<br/><br/>66<br/>
P ,4gjg&.<br/> WBBÊBÊL 4W^ /<br/> iiglpf / 1<br/>
68<br/>
Pavillon de Breteuil<br/><br/>At the Pavillon de Breteuil in Sèvres we find the international standard<br/>meter of iridic platinum at a temperature of o° Centigrade. Obviously it is<br/>not with this meter that the greatness of genius is measured. To measure a<br/>genius the dealers make use of an appropriate meter of spiritual rubber.<br/>This meter must be capable of being either long or short. It must be short<br/>in order for the dealer to be able to say: “See how big this genius is: he is a<br/>hundred and fifty meters long. In my shop you will find only geniuses over a<br/>hundred meters.” The meter must be long in order for the dealer to be able<br/>to say: “Look at that fellow; he isn’t even a meter long. He’s not a genius, he’s<br/>a dwarf. He’s not a maître, he’s a millimaître.”<br/><br/>The sticky, viscous portion of the wild boar, the worm-infested portion<br/>between the thighs, sautéed in pine-gum, garnished with a few cherry pits to<br/>crack merrily between the teeth, is the favorite dish of the true huntsman.<br/>The exquisite body of the art dealer makes the choice more difficult. What<br/>is, indeed, the most succulent, tasty morsel? Painters prefer the feet. At first<br/>sight one would take them for a ritual object of the pre-Adamic era. But<br/>slowly they come to life, move and say “papa” and “mama.” The feet of art<br/>dealers are the size of an artist’s palette. Between the palette’s toes grow the<br/>flowers of the philosophy of art. Art dealers’ feet are always turned towards<br/>the rear of their shop, where the sacred fire burns in the uncircumcized safe.<br/>Like the needle of the compass, they are in movement day and night. Con-<br/>sequently, the dealers’ feet are often turned backwards, in the direction op-<br/>posite from the one they are moving in. At the Ides you will see the dealers,<br/>with a nonchalance bordering on indecency, undress and dash into the street<br/>stark naked in the name of beauty, to dance rounds. There is hardly a dealer<br/>who has not previously gone through a stage of being a danseuse at the Folies<br/>Bergère. Like opera stars they are perfect toe-dancers; their feet are as beauti-<br/>ful as the Alexandrine feet of Racine.<br/><br/>Stone formed by human hand<br/><br/>When I exhibited my first concrete reliefs, I put out a little manifesto de-<br/>claring the art of the bourgeois to be sanctioned lunacy. Especially these naked<br/>men, women and children in stone or bronze, exhibited in public squares,<br/>gardens and forest clearings, who untiringly dance, chase butterflies, shoot<br/>arrows, hold out apples, blow the flute, are the perfect expression of a mad<br/><br/>69<br/>
world. These mad figures must no longer sully nature. Today, as in the days<br/>of the early Christians, the essential must become known. The artist must let<br/>his work create itself directly. Today we are no longer concerned with sub-<br/>tleties. My reliefs and sculptures fit naturally into nature. On closer examina-<br/>tion however they reveal that they were formed by human hand, and so I have<br/>named certain of them: “Stone formed by human hand.” [illustration 12]<br/><br/>The germ of a new plastic work<br/><br/>A small fragment of one of my plastic works presenting a curve or a con-<br/>trast that moves me, is often the germ of a new work. I intensify the curve<br/>or the contrast, and this determines new forms. Among the new forms two<br/>grow with special intensity. I let these two continue to grow until the original<br/>forms have become secondary and almost expressionless. Finally I suppress<br/>one of the secondary, expressionless forms so that the others become more ap-<br/>parent. One work often requires months, years. I work until enough of my<br/>life has flowed into its body. Each of these bodies has a spiritual content, but<br/>only on completion of the work do I interpret this content and give it a name.<br/>In this way my works have received names such as: “Black cloud-arrow and<br/>white points,” “Plant escutcheon,” “Arabic eight,” “Plant pendulum at rest,”<br/>“Leaves arranged according to the law of chance.” [illustrations 13 a, b, 15 a, b]<br/><br/>concrete art<br/><br/>we do not want to copy nature, we do not want to reproduce, we want to<br/>produce, we want to produce like a plant that produces a fruit and not to<br/>reproduce, we want to produce directly and not through interpretation.<br/><br/>as there is not the slightest trace of abstraction in this art, we call it: con-<br/>crete art.<br/><br/>the works of concrete art should not be signed by their creators, these<br/>paintings, these sculptures, these objects, should remain anonymous in the<br/>great studio of nature like clouds, mountains, seas, animals, men. yes, men<br/>should return to nature, artists should work in community like the artists of<br/>the middle ages, in 1915 o. van rees, c. van rees, freundlich, s. taeuber and<br/>myself, made an attempt of this kind.<br/><br/>in 1915 I wrote: “these works are constructed with lines, surfaces, forms<br/>and colors, they strive to surpass the human and achieve the infinite and the<br/>eternal, they are a negation of man’s egotism. . . . the hands of our brothers,<br/><br/>70<br/>
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instead of serving us as our own hands, have become enemy hands, instead of<br/>anonymity there was celebrity and the masterpiece, wisdom was dead. . . .<br/>to reproduce is to imitate, to play a comedy, to walk the tightrope. ...”<br/><br/>the renaissance puffed up human reason with pride, modern times with<br/>their science and technology have made man a megalomaniac, the atrocious<br/>confusion of our epoch is the consequence of this overestimation of reason.<br/><br/>the evolution of traditional painting towards concrete art, beginning with<br/>cezanne and via the cubists has often been explained, and these historical<br/>explanations have confused the problem, abruptly, “according to the laws of<br/>chance,” the human mind underwent a transformation about the year 1914:<br/>an ethical problem presented itself, most of these works were not exhibited<br/>until about 1920. there was a blossoming of all the colors and all the forms in<br/>the world, these paintings, these sculptures, these objects, were liberated from<br/>conventional element, in every country adepts of this new art arose. — concrete<br/>art influenced architecture, furniture, cinema, typography.<br/><br/>certain “surrealist objects” are also concrete works, without any descriptive<br/>content, they seem to me exceedingly important for the evolution of concrete<br/>art, for, by allusion, they succeed in introducing into this art the psychic<br/>emotion that makes it live.<br/><br/>concrete art aims to transform the world, it aims to make existence more<br/>bearable, it aims to save man from the most dangerous folly: vanity, it aims<br/>to simplify man’s life, it aims to identify him with nature, reason uproots man<br/>and causes him to lead a tragic existence, concrete art is an elemental, natural,<br/>healthy art, which causes the stars of peace, love and poetry to grow in the<br/>head and the heart, where concrete art enters, melancholy departs, dragging<br/>with it its gray suitcases full of black sighs, [illustrations 18, 27, 28a, b, c]<br/><br/>Concrete art<br/><br/>In 1909 the Russian painter Rossine came to see me in Switzerland and<br/>showed me drawings in which he had represented his inner world with col-<br/>ored dots and curves in a way that had never been seen before. These were no<br/>abstractions of landscapes, people, objects, as in cubist pictures. I showed<br/>him canvases covered with a black web, a network of strange writing, runes,<br/>lines, spots, produced in months of painful work. My colleagues had shaken<br/>their heads and evaluated my work as unsuccessful sketches. Rossine, how-<br/>ever, was impressed. His work and mine, I think, were concrete art. The<br/>earliest of my concrete pictures now extant were done in 1915. Two of these<br/><br/>72<br/>
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are in the collection of M. Hagenbach in Basel. A similar work is reproduced<br/>in the little anthology, Cabaret Voltaire, which appeared in 1916. These works<br/>are collages of various materials, paper, cloth, string, stone, wood.<br/><br/>The world of memory and dream<br/><br/>Towards the end of her life, Sophie Taeuber was transfigured by a strange<br/>light, as though she knew of her approaching destination. She always knew<br/>the right way, like a traveler who has seen the roads of the country from a high<br/>tower. Forces emanated from her that transformed the world of the day. Once<br/>a radiant landscape streamed out of her, which permeated a mediocre place<br/>in which we happened to be, so that it unfolded in fragrant splendor. She<br/>always lived in contact with the real world of dreams. Only fairy-tales of per-<br/>fect beauty could reflect the radiance and light of her being.<br/><br/>The world of dream and memory is rank with impenetrable darkness and<br/>radiant with pure light. This darkness and this light, however, do not mean<br/>day and night as in our earthly day, but are one with the infinite. Like flames<br/>and waves, the dead and the living course through this world. They pass<br/>without weight through space and time. They release likenesses, which multi-<br/>ply like echoes, which accompany them with amity or pursue them with<br/>hatred. They give rise to confusing sorrows and joys. They change their shape<br/>for that of another. They disguise themselves. Dead men meet again alive, and<br/>live men have long been resting in their graves. When we meet these dead<br/>men in our unreal world of the day, they laugh and act as if nothing of the sort<br/>had happened, and talk about some trifling business. In that world even we<br/>people of the day become one with the infinite.<br/><br/>She painted the soul of the dream, the invisible reality. She drew radiant,<br/>geometric messages. She drew lines that plumbed bottomless depths. She<br/>drew solemn lines, laughing lines, lines that glowed white, whirling line<br/>dances, jagged whorls, trellises of lightning. She let lines flare up wildly<br/>around bundles of lines, until lines and bundles burst into flames of flowers.<br/>She let lines whirl around rigid points, suddenly stop in gracious recollection,<br/>and join into forms that sent off a glittering like a spring day. She painted<br/>the golden glittering skeleton of the stars. She let points blush with shame.<br/>She let points grow into berries, giant fruits, suns. She let points crumble into<br/>ashes. She sowed pearls in white flowerbeds, and harvested moons. She de-<br/>signed courses for sacred flights. She painted the life of closed eyes that sing<br/>inward. She drew the outline of silence.<br/><br/>Usually I meet Sophie under the olive trees by the Mediterranean. She<br/><br/>75<br/>
jokes, turns round, hops away, flaps her arms like a bird’s wings, turns round<br/>again and comes towards me. Another time she offers me a large bunch of<br/>grapes; the grapes are weeping eyes. With clear eyes she meets my muddled<br/>gaze. She had dreams that she never wanted to tell me about. She hid them<br/>from me behind exaggerated, boisterous jokes. She went round in a circle and<br/>imitated a trumpeter blowing with all his might yet producing no sound, and<br/>nothing could persuade her to tell me her dream.<br/><br/>Am I dreaming when I see Sophie bright and silent in the depths of a white<br/>blossom of a pure white star? Am I dreaming when I hear Sophie speaking<br/>and we converse? Am I dreaming when I see Sophie as a dead woman lovely<br/>and living? Memory and dream flow together like mighty streams. What hap-<br/>pens in them is eternal. But what happens in the unreal world of the day, is<br/>full of rude snares and is transitory. And that is why Sophie behaved with<br/>severity and determination in this world. She never lost herself in the snares<br/>of unreality. The world of memory and dream is the real world. It is related<br/>to art, which is fashioned at the edge of earthly unreality, [illustration 19]<br/><br/>And so the circle closed<br/><br/>Between 1908 and 1910 I made my first attempts to transcend inherited art<br/>forms, inherited prejudices. This was a time of torment. I was living in soli-<br/>tude between Weggis and Greppen in Switzerland, at the foot of the Rigi.<br/>In winter I saw no one for months. I read, sketched and looked out of the<br/>window of my little room into the mountains immersed in snowclouds. It<br/>was an abstract landscape that surrounded me. I had leisure for philosophiz-<br/>ing. In December 1915 in Zurich, I met Sophie Taeuber, who had already<br/>liberated herself from traditional art. In our work, we first suppressed the<br/>playful and the charming. We also regarded the personal as burdensome and<br/>useless, since it had grown in a rigid lifeless world. We searched for new<br/>materials, which were not weighted down with tradition. Individually and<br/>in common we embroidered, wove, painted, pasted geometric, static pictures.<br/>Impersonal, severe structures of surfaces and colors arose. All accident was<br/>excluded. No spots, tears, fibres, imprécisions, should disturb the clarity of<br/>our work. For our paper pictures we even discarded the scissors with which<br/>we had at first cut them out, since they too readily betrayed the life of the<br/>hand. From this time on we used a paper-cutting machine. In the embroi-<br/>deries, woven fabrics, paintings, collages that we did together, we humbly<br/>strove to approach the pure radiance of reality. I should like to call these works<br/>the art of silence. This art turns from the outward world of silence to inner<br/><br/>76<br/>
being, reality. From right angles and squares we erected radiant temples to<br/>the deepest grief and the highest joy. Our works were intended to simplify,<br/>transform, beautify the world. But our art did not disturb the bourgeois in<br/>their overcrowded madhouses, where they continued to wallow in their origi-<br/>nal oil paintings. At various periods in our lives Sophie Taeuber and I worked<br/>together: in Zurich from 1917 to 1919, in Strassburg from 1926 to 1928 with<br/>Theo van Doesburg then in 1939, the first year of the war, in Meudon — I illus-<br/>trated several works from this period, in my book of poems, le siège de l’air,<br/>which appeared in 1946 — and finally in Grasse in 1941 where we collaborated<br/>with Sonya Delaunay and Alberto Magnelli. Today even more than in my<br/>youth I believe that a return to an essential order, to a harmony, is necessary<br/>to save the world from boundless confusion.<br/><br/>I further developed the collage by arranging the pieces automatically, with-<br/>out will. I called this process “according to the law of chance.” The “law<br/>of chance,” which embraces all laws and is unfathomable like the first cause<br/>from which all life arises, can only be experienced through complete devo-<br/>tion to the unconscious. I maintained that anyone who followed this law was<br/>creating pure life.<br/><br/>About 1930 the pictures torn by hand from paper came into being. Human<br/>work now seemed to me even less than piece-work. It seemed to me removed<br/>from life. Everything is approximate, less than approximate, for when more<br/>closely and sharply examined, the most perfect picture is a warty, threadbare<br/>approximation, a dry porridge, a dismal moon-crater landscape. What arro-<br/>gance is concealed in perfection. Why struggle for precision, purity, when they<br/>can never be attained. The decay that begins immediately on completion of the<br/>work was now welcome to me. Dirty man with his dirty fingers points and<br/>daubs at a nuance in the picture. This spot is henceforth marked by sweat and<br/>grease. He breaks into wild enthusiasm and sprays the picture with spittle. A<br/>delicate paper collage or watercolor is lost. Dust and insects are also efficient in<br/>destruction. The light fades the colors. Sun and heat make blisters, disintegrate<br/>the paper, crack the paint, disintegrate the paint. The dampness creates<br/>mould. The work falls apart, dies. The dying of a picture no longer brought<br/>me to despair. I had made my pact with its passing, with its death, and now it<br/>was part of the picture for me. But death grew and ate up the picture and life.<br/>This dissolution must have been followed by the negation of all action. Form<br/>had become unform, the Finite the Infinite, the Individual the Whole.<br/><br/>It was Sophie Taeuber who, through the example of her clear work and<br/>her clear life, showed me the right way, the way to beauty. In this world there<br/>is a fine balance between Above and Below, light and darkness, eternity and<br/>transitoriness. And so the circle closed, [illustrations 20-26]<br/><br/>77<br/>
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Original Text of Essays<br/>
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Das Mass aller Dinge<br/><br/>Der Mensch beträgt sich, als habe er die Welt erschaffen und könne mit ihr<br/>spielen. Schon ziemlich zu Beginn seiner glorreichen Entwicklung prägte er<br/>den Satz, dass der Mensch das Mass aller Dinge sei. Schnell machte er sich<br/>darauf an die Arbeit und stellte von der Welt, so viel er konnte, auf den<br/>Kopf. In Stücke zerschlagen liegt die Venus von Milo am Boden. Mit dem<br/>Mass aller Dinge, mit sich selbst, hat er gemessen und sich vermessen. Er hat<br/>die Schönheit verschneidert und verschnitten. Aus der Masschneiderei wurde<br/>ein Konfektionshaus, und aus dem Konfektionshaus ist heute eine Formen-<br/>schau der Tollheit geworden. Verwirrung, Unruhe, Unsinn, Wahnsinn,<br/>Besessenheit beherrschen die Welt. Fötusse mit geometrischen Doppelköpfen,<br/>Menschenleiber mit gelben Nilpferdköpfen, fächerförmige, berüsselte Misch-<br/>wesen, bezahnte Mägen an Krücken, schleppfüssige Pyramiden mit tränenden<br/>Menschenaugen, Erdklumpen mit Schamgliedern und so fort, sind auf Lein-<br/>wänden oder in Statuen entstanden.<br/><br/>Die Schönheit versank nicht unter den Trümmern der Jahrhunderte<br/><br/>Als sich die Person, der Intellekt, die Philosophie aus der sagenumwobenen<br/>Tiefe der mythischen Menschheit löste, als die Natur vom Menschen entdeckt<br/>wurde, als “die Erde, das wogenreiche Meer, die feuchte Luft und der Titan<br/>Äther” feierlich besungen wurden, weilte die Schönheit nackt unter den<br/>Menschen.<br/><br/>Jedes Jahrhundert wandelte sich die Schönheit. Die Schönheit versank<br/>nicht unter den Trümmern der Jahrhunderte, aber in der Maya, in den Trug-<br/>bildern. Sie wurde so reich beschenkt mit den seltensten Gewändern, dass sie<br/>nicht mehr wusste, in welchen sich zeigen.<br/><br/>Welches ist das ursprüngliche Bild der Schönheit? Welches ist das Bild<br/>“der Schönheit, die gequollen vom Quell ursprünglichen Bilds”? Ist es die<br/>nackte Körperlichkeit der Griechen, ist es die Verkleidung, die Verschleie-<br/>rung, das Schauspiel der Renaissance, ist es die entkörperlichende Sehnsucht<br/>der Gothik, ist es der Würfel und die Kugel, ist es die Liebe und die Harmonie<br/>von der Empedokles sagt: “Da breiten sich nicht von einem Rücken zwei<br/>Arme aus noch sind da Füsse oder schnelle Knie oder zeugende Glieder, son-<br/>dern es war ein Sphairos, von allen Seiten sich selber gleich.”<br/><br/>81<br/>
Trug, Schein, Kunststück<br/><br/>Der Mensch wurde ein kindischer Demiurg, ein kindischer Schöpfer. In<br/>seinem Grössenwahn wollte er Gott und die Welt nochmals erschaffen. Eine<br/>widerliche Zänkerei entbrannte nun unter den Demiurgen und steigerte<br/>ihre Uneinigkeit bis zur Feindschaft. Jeder Maler, jeder Bildhauer wollte<br/>der erstaunlichere Schöpfer sein. An Stelle der Namenlosigkeit und der<br/>Demut traten die Berühmtheit und das Kunststück.<br/><br/>Der Mensch hat den Sinn für die Schönheit verloren. Er ist unwirklich<br/>geworden. An Stelle von Pyramiden. Tempeln, Domen, lässt er Trug, Schein,<br/>Kunststück entstehen.<br/><br/>Wirklichkeit<br/><br/>Unsere Arbeiten sind Bauten aus Linien, Flächen, Formen, Farben. Sie<br/>suchen sich dem Wirklichen zu nähern. Sie hassen das Kunststück, die Eitel-<br/>keit, die Nachahmung, die Seiltänzerei. Sicher gibt es Seiltänzer von unter-<br/>schiedlicher Begabung. Die Kunst aber soll zur Geistigkeit, zur Wirklichkeit<br/>führen. Diese Wirklichkeit ist weder die objektive Wirklichkeit oder Realität,<br/>noch die subjektive, gedankliche Wirklichkeit, das heisst Idealität, sondern<br/>eine mystische Wirklichkeit, der gegenüber wir uns wie das Auge verhalten,<br/>von welchem das nachfolgende neu-platonische Bild spricht: “Es entfernt<br/>sich vom Licht um die Dunkelheit zu sehen, es sieht aber nicht; denn es kann<br/>die Dunkelheit nicht bei Licht sehen, indessen, ohne dieses, sieht es nicht;<br/>indem es nicht sieht, sieht es die Dunkelheit so, wie es sie natürlicherweise<br/>sehen kann.”<br/><br/>Oben und Unten<br/><br/>In frühen Zeiten wusste der Mensch, wo oben und unten ist, wusste, was<br/>ewig und was vergänglich ist. Der Mensch stand noch nicht auf dem Kopf.<br/>Seine Häuser hatten einen Boden, Wände und eine Decke. Die Renaissance<br/>verwandelte die Decke in einen Narrenhimmel, die Wände in Irrgärten und<br/>den Boden in das Bodenlose. Der Mensch hat den Sinn für die Wirklichkeit,<br/>das Mystische, die bestimmte Unbestimmbarkeit, die grösste Bestimmtheit<br/>verloren.<br/><br/>82<br/>
Ein Teil der Wirklichkeit<br/><br/>Die konstruktive Kunst verherrlicht die moderne, materielle Welt, den<br/>Fortschritt, die Maschine. Die neoplastische Kunst löst sich von der ma-<br/>teriellen Welt los. Nur wenige senkrechte und wagrechte Linien, zwei, drei<br/>Farben und ein “Gleichgewicht” sind von ihr übrig geblieben. Einem<br/>angelsächsischen Besucher, der Mondrian fragte, ob er immer Quadrate<br/>male, entgegnete er: “Quadrate? Ich sehe keine Quadrate auf meinen Bil-<br/>dern.” Also selbst Quadrate und Rechtecke wurden in der Welt der schönen<br/>Künste nicht mehr geduldet. Die ersten neoplastischen Bilder sind in den<br/>Jahren 1917/18 gemalt worden. Abbildungen der Arbeiten Mondrians, Does-<br/>burgs, Vantongerloos bekamen wir in Zürich ungefähr im Jahr 1920 zu sehen.<br/><br/>Schon unsere ersten konkreten Arbeiten kehrten sich endgültig von dem<br/>Wandel, von dem Fluss aller Dinge, dem auch der Mensch unterworfen ist,<br/>also von der Natur, von der sichtbaren Welt ab, die ja nur ein Teil der<br/>Wirklichkeit ist.<br/><br/>Die Heilige Stille<br/><br/>Bald wird von der Stille wie von einem Märchen erzählt werden. Der<br/>Mensch hat sich von der Stille abgewandt. Jeden Tag erfindet er Maschinen<br/>und Apparate, die den Lärm vermehren, und den Menschen vom wesent-<br/>lichen Leben, von der Betrachtung, von der geistigen Versenkung, ablenken.<br/>Auto, Flugzeug, Radio, Atombombe sind die letzten grossen Siege des Fort-<br/>schrittes. Der Mensch hat nichts mehr Wesentliches zu tun, aber dieses Nichts<br/>will er schnell und mit übermenschlichem Lärm tun. Er will abgelenkt sein<br/>und ahnt nicht, dass der Roboter, der nun kutschiert, ihn ins Sinnlose fährt.<br/>Beim Tuten, Heulen, Schreien, Donnern, Krachen, Pfeifen, Knirschen, Tril-<br/>lern wird ihm zuversichtlich zu Mute. Seine Unruhe legt sich. Seine unmensch-<br/>liche Leere entfaltet sich ungeheuerlich wie ein graues Gewächs.<br/><br/>Träumer<br/><br/>Nur wenige Träumer opfern heute noch ihr Leben, um den klaren Weg<br/>gehen zu können. Sie essen schlecht und schlafen hart. Sie leiden unter Hitze<br/>und Kälte. Doch wenn die lichten Fittiche sie umrauschen, versinkt alle Pein<br/><br/>83<br/>
ihres Lebens, und in ihren armen Zellen künden und singen sie dann von<br/>den wirklichen Sonnen, von dem wirklichen Leben.<br/><br/>Dada war nicht nur eine Kesselpauke, ein grosser Lärm und Spass. Dada<br/>protestierte gegen die Dummheit und die Eitelkeit des Menschen. Unter den<br/>Dadaisten waren Märtyrer und Gläubige, die ihr Leben opferten auf der<br/>Suche nach dem Leben, nach der Schönheit. Ball war ein solcher grosser<br/>Träumer. Er träumte und glaubte an die Dichtung und an das Bild. In<br/>der “Flucht aus der Zeit” schreibt Hugo Ball: “Das Wort und das Bild sind<br/>eins. Maler und Dichter gehören zusammen. Christus ist Bild und Wort. Das<br/>Wort und das Bild sind gekreuzigt.” Malevitsch hat das gekreuzigte Bild<br/>gemalt und ist dafür von den Russen gekreuzigt worden. Die Träumer leben<br/>immer noch mit dem Bild, dem Wort und der Musik in den Katakomben.<br/><br/>introduction à l’histoire naturelle de max ernst<br/><br/>cette introduction contient la pseudointroduction l’original les variantes<br/>de l’original le pseudooriginal ainsi que les variantes du pseudooriginal les<br/>apocryphes et l’incorporation de tous ces textes en arpocryphe original aux<br/>barbes apocopées ainsi que cinquante médailles calcinées et cinquante soleils<br/>de cinquante ans car la médaille se lève. — la médaille de la lumière se lève. —<br/>cinquante soleils et cinquante médailles se lèvent. — les roues tournent. —<br/>les roues tournent. — cinquante soleils et cinquante médailles se lèvent tandis<br/>que le pseudo-soleil après cinquante ans de service se retire dans les roues<br/>calcinées de la lumière. — les roues ne tournent plus. — les roues ne tournent<br/>plus. —<br/><br/>c’est l’homme qui a remplacé les réveils-matin par des tremblements de terre<br/>les averses de dragée par des averses de grêle, l’ombre de l’homme rencontrant<br/>celle d’une mouche cause une inondation, c’est l’homme aussi qui a appris<br/>aux chevaux à s’embrasser comme les présidents rois et empereurs en se suçant<br/>la barbe en se léchant le museau en se plongeant la langue dans les profondeurs<br/>patriotiques, le passant qui voit ces accolades cavalines pense que la paix est<br/>pour toujours établie sur terre.<br/><br/>avec ses onze queues et demi de coton ses huit jambes de pain ses cent yeux<br/>d’air ses quatre coeurs de pierre il va à la chasse de la moustache volante<br/>cyclopéenne et dépourvue de membres, mais comme cette moustache est une<br/>réalité intelligible le chasseur retourne toujours bredouille, à l’aide de ses<br/>onze queues et demi l’homme compte dix objets et demi dans la chambre<br/>meublée de l’univers: les épouvantails portant dans leur boutonnière des<br/>volcans et des geysers les devantures des éruptions les étalages de la ficelle de<br/><br/>84<br/>
lave les systèmes de monnaie solaire les ventres étiquetés les murs rasés par<br/>les poètes les palettes des césars les natures complètement mortes les écuries<br/>des sphynx les yeux de l’homme pétrifié en louchant vers sodome les cicatrices<br/>de . . .<br/><br/>entre dans les continents sans frapper mais avec une muselière de filigrane.<br/><br/>les feuilles ne poussent jamais sur les arbres, comme une montagne vue à<br/>vol d’oiseau elles n’ont pas de perspective de savon de plastron hybride de<br/>joues écossaises de crypte, le spectateur se trouve toujours dans une position<br/>fausse devant une feuille, il a l’impression de porter la tête dans le nombril<br/>les pieds dans la bouche les yeux mal lavés dans les mains, quant aux branches<br/>troncs et racines je déclare que ce sont des fantasmagories que ce sont des<br/>mensonges de chauves, les branches troncs et racines n’existent pas.<br/><br/>comme un lion qui flaire un succulent couple de jeunes mariés la plante<br/>sismique convoite le repas du mort, dans son trou millénaire et fardé en<br/>foetus elle tourbillonne d’avidité comme le jus blanc de la fin avec le jus noir<br/>du début et ses coups d’oeil chassent par leurs férocités les nombrils autour de<br/>la terre, le tilleul pousse docilement sur les plaines planchéiées. le start du<br/>châtaignier et du chêne se fait au signe du drapeau d. a. d. a. c’est à dire domine<br/>anno domine anno. le cyprès n’est pas un mollet de ballet écclésiastique.<br/><br/>pendant que le lion féroce flaire un succulent couple de jeunes mariés le<br/>tilleul pousse docilement sur les plaines planchéiées. quand un voyageur et<br/>une montagne se rencontrent dans le ciel ils se confondent l’un avec l’autre,<br/>la montagne se prend pour le voyageur et le voyageur pour la montagne, ces<br/>rencontres se terminent toujours par une rixe sanglante dans laquelle le<br/>voyageur et la montagne s’arrachent réciproquement leurs arbres, le start du<br/>châtaignier et du chêne se font au signe du drapeau végétal, le cyprès est un<br/>mollet de ballet écclésiastique.<br/><br/>l’idole rêve dans la mer et la pluie, attelés à quatre devant les quatre précé-<br/>dents comme les cimetières des ventriloques ou les champs d’honneur les<br/>insectes en sortent.<br/><br/>voici ève la seule qui nous reste, elle est la complice blanche des voleurs<br/>de journaux, voici le coucou l’origine de la pendule, le bruit de ses mâchoires<br/>ressemble à celui d’une forte chute de cheveux, ainsi on compte parmi les<br/>insectes le pain vacciné le choeur des cellules les éclairs au-dessous de quatorze<br/>ans et votre humble serviteur.<br/><br/>le ciel des marines a été décoré par des tapissiers expressionnistes qui ont<br/>suspendu un châle à fleurs de givre au zénith, du temps de la récolte des<br/>diamants conjugaux on rencontre sur les mers d’immenses armoires à glaces<br/>flottant sur leur dos. la glace de ses armoires est remplacée par des parquets<br/>cirés et l’armoire elle-même par un château en espagne. ces armoires à glace<br/><br/>85<br/>
se louent comme ring à des sage-femmes et à des cigognes pour y faire leurs<br/>innombrables rounds ou comme tabourets à deux gigantesques pieds rouillés<br/>qui y reposent et qui font parfois quelques pas dessus pampam. c’est pour cela<br/>qu’on nomme aussi les mers pampas car pam veut dire pas et deux pas font<br/>pampam.<br/><br/>vous voyez donc qu’on ne consomme monsieur son père que tranche par<br/>tranche, impossible d’en finir en un seul déjeuner sur l’herbe et le citron<br/>même tombe à genou devant la beauté de la nature, [illustration 1]<br/><br/>Dadaland<br/><br/>A Zurich, en 1915, désintéressés des abattoirs de la guerre mondiale nous<br/>nous adonnions aux Beaux Arts. Tandis que grondait dans le lointain le<br/>tonnerre des batteries, nous collions, nous récitions, nous versifions, nous<br/>chantions de toute notre âme. Nous cherchions un art élémentaire qui devait,<br/>pensions-nous, sauver les hommes de la folie furieuse de ces temps. Nous<br/>aspirions à un ordre nouveau qui put rétablir l’équilibre entre le ciel et<br/>l’enfer. Cet art devint rapidement un sujet de réprobation générale. Rien<br/>d’étonnant à ce que les “bandits” n’aient pu nous comprendre. Leur puérile<br/>manie d’autoritarisme veut que l’art lui-même serve à l’abrutissement des<br/>hommes.<br/><br/>La Renaissance a appris aux hommes l’exaltation orgueilleuse de leur rai-<br/>son. Les temps nouveaux avec leurs sciences et leurs techniques les ont voués<br/>à la mégalomanie. La confusion de notre époque est le résultat de cette<br/>surestimation de la raison. Nous voulions un art anonyme et collectif. Voici<br/>ce que j’écrivis à propos d’une exposition que nous fîmes en 1915 à Zurich:<br/>“Ces oeuvres sont construites avec des lignes, des surfaces, des formes et des<br/>couleurs. Elles cherchent à atteindre par delà l’humain, l’infini et l’éternel.<br/>Elles sont un reniement de l’égotisme des hommes. . . . Les mains de nos<br/>frères au lieu de nous servir comme nos propres mains étaient devenues des<br/>mains ennemies. Au lieu de l’anonymat il y avait la célébrité et le chef d’oeuvre,<br/>la sagesse était morte. . . . Reproduire c’est imiter, jouer la comédie, danser<br/>sur la corde raide. ...”<br/><br/>En 1915, Sophie Taeuber et moi, nous avons réalisé les premières oeuvres<br/>tirées des formes les plus simples en peinture, en broderie et en papiers collés.<br/>Ce sont probablement les toutes premières manifestations de cet art. Ces<br/>tableaux sont des Réalités en soi, sans significations ni intention cérébrale.<br/><br/>86<br/>
Nous rejetions tout ce qui était copie ou description pour laisser l’Elémentaire<br/>et le Spontané réagir en pleine liberté. Comme la disposition des plans, les<br/>proportions de ces plans et leurs couleurs ne semblaient dépendre que du<br/>hasard, je déclarais que ces oeuvres étaient ordonnées “selon la loi du hasard”<br/>tel que dans l’ordre de la nature, le hasard n’étant pour moi qu’une partie<br/>restreinte d’une raison d’être insaisissable, d’un ordre inaccessible dans leur<br/>ensemble. — Des artistes russes et hollandais qui produisirent à cette époque<br/>des oeuvres assez proches des nôtres en apparences, obéissaient à de tout autres<br/>intentions. Elles sont en effet un hommage à la vie moderne, une profession de<br/>foi à la machine et à la technique. Bien que traitées par l’abstraction il reste<br/>toujours en elles un fond de naturalisme et de trompe-l’oeil.<br/><br/>De 1916 à 1920 Sophie Taeuber dansa à Zurich. Voici les belles lignes que<br/>Hugo Bail a écrit à son sujet dans un essai intitulé “Occultisme et Autres<br/>Choses Belles et Rares”: “Autour d’elle c’est la clarté du soleil et le miracle<br/>qui remplace la tradition. Elle est pleine d’invention, de caprice et de bizar-<br/>reries. Elle a dansé sur le ‘Chant des Poissons Volants et des Hippocampes,’<br/>une complainte onomatopoétique. Ce fut une danse pleine d’éclats et d’arêtes,<br/>pleine de papillotements de lumière, d’une intensité pénétrante. Les lignes de<br/>son corps se brisent, chaque geste se décompose en cent mouvements précis,<br/>anguleux, incisifs. La bouffonnerie de la perspective, de l’éclairage, de l’at-<br/>mosphère est le prétexte de son système nerveux hypersensible à une drôlerie<br/>spirituelle et ironique. Les figures de sa danse sont à la fois mystérieuses,<br/>grotesques et extatiques. ...”<br/><br/>J’ai connu Eggeling en 1915 à Paris dans l’atelier de Madame Wassilieff.<br/>Cette dernière avait organisé dans ses deux ateliers une cantine où les artistes<br/>pouvaient manger le soir pour peu d’argent. Les amis qui revenaient du front<br/>nous parlaient de la guerre et quand le cafard était trop fort une jeune femme<br/>à jolie voix chantait: “En passant par la Lorraine avec mes sabots. ...” Un<br/>Suédois ivre l’accompagnait au piano. Chaque nuit je faisais à pied avec mon<br/>frère dans l’obscurité de ce Paris menacé par les Allemands les quelques<br/>kilomètres qui séparent Montmartre de la gare Montparnasse où se trouvait<br/>l’atelier de Wassilieff. Eggeling habitait Boulevard Raspail un atelier sinistre<br/>et humide. En face de lui demeurait Modigliani qui venait souvent le voir,<br/>récitant Dante et se soûlant. Il prenait aussi de la cocaïne. Un soir il fut décidé<br/>que je devais en compagnie de plusieurs autres innocents, être initiés aux<br/>“Paradis Artificiels.” Chacun de nous donna quelque francs à Modigliani<br/>pour qu’il put aller faire provision de la drogue. Nous attendîmes des heures.<br/>Enfin il revint hilare et reniflant, ayant tout absorbé à lui seul. Eggeling<br/>peignait peu en ce temps, il discutait pendant des heures sur l’art. Je le<br/><br/>87<br/>
rencontrais de nouveau en 1917, à Zurich. Il cherchait les règles d’un contre-<br/>point plastique, en composait et dessinait les premiers éléments. Il se tour-<br/>mentait à mort. Il avait formulé sur de grands rouleaux de papier une sorte<br/>d’écriture hiératique à l’aide de figures d’une proportion et beauté rares. Ces<br/>figures grandissent, se subdivisent, se multiplient, se déplacent, s’enchevêtrent<br/>d’un groupe à l’autre, disparaissent et réapparaissent en partie, s’organisant<br/>en une imposante construction suivant l’architecture des formes végétales. Il<br/>nommait ses papiers “Symphonie.” Il mourut en 1922. Il avait pu encore, avec<br/>son ami Hans Richter adapter son invention au cinéma.<br/><br/>En cachette, dans sa tranquille petite chambre, Janco se dévouait à un<br/>naturalisme en zigzag. Je lui pardonne ce vice secret, car il a évoqué et fixé le<br/>“Cabaret Voltaire” sur la toile de l’un de ses tableaux. Dans un local sur-<br/>peuplé et bariolé de couleurs se tiennent sur une estrade quelques person-<br/>nages fantastiques qui sont sensés représenter Tzara, Janco, Bail, Huelsenbeck,<br/>Madame Hennings et votre humble serviteur. Nous sommes en train de<br/>mener un grand sabbat. Les gens autour de nous crient, rient et gesticulent.<br/>Nous répondons par des soupirs d’amour, des salves de hoquet, des poésies,<br/>des “Oua, Oua” et des “Miaous” de bruitistes moyennageux. Tzara fait sauter<br/>son cul comme le ventre d’une danseuse orientale. Janco joue un violon invi-<br/>sible et salue jusqu’à terre. Madame Hennings avec une figure de madone<br/>essaie le grand écart. Huelsenbeck n’arrête pas de frapper sur sa grosse caisse,<br/>pendant que Bail l’accompagne au piano pâle comme un mannequin de craie.<br/>On nous attribua le titre honorifique de nihilistes. Les directeurs de la<br/>crétinisation appelaient de ce nom tous ceux qui ne suivaient leur route.<br/>Les grands matadors du “Mouvement Dada” étaient Bail et Tzara. Bail est à<br/>mon avis un des plus grands écrivains allemands. C’était un personnage long<br/>et sec avec une figure de pater dolorosus. Tzara a écrit alors les “Vingt-Cinq<br/>Poèmes” qui appartiennent à la meilleure poésie française. Plus tard se joignit<br/>à nous le Docteur Serner, aventurier, auteur de romans policier, danseur<br/>mondain, médecin-spécialiste de la peau et gentleman-cambrioleur.<br/><br/>Je rencontrais Tzara et Serner à l’Odéon et au café de la Terrasse à Zurich<br/>où nous écrivîmes un cycle de poèmes: “Hyperbole du crocodile-coiffeur et<br/>de la canne à main.” Ce genre de poésies fut plus tard baptisé: “Poésie Auto-<br/>matique” par les surréalistes. La poésie automatique sort en droite ligne des<br/>entrailles du poète ou de tout autre de ses organes qui a emmagasiné des<br/>réserves. Ni le Postillon de Longjumeau, ni l’alexandrin, ni la grammaire,<br/>ni l’esthétique, ni Bouddha, ni le Sixième Commandement ne saurait le<br/>gêner. Il cocorique, jure, gémit, bredouille, yodle comme ça lui chante. Ses<br/>poèmes sont comme la nature: ils puent, rient, riment comme la nature. La<br/><br/>88<br/>
niaiserie, ou du moins ce que les hommes appellent ainsi, lui est aussi précieuse<br/>qu’une rhétorique sublime, car, dans la nature, une brindille cassée vaut en<br/>beauté et en importance les étoiles, et ce sont les hommes qui décrètent de la<br/>beauté ou de la laideur.<br/><br/>Les objets Dada sont formés d’éléments trouvés ou fabriqués, simples ou<br/>hétéroclites. Les Chinois, il y a plusieurs milliers d’années, Duchamp, Picabia<br/>aux Etats Unis, Schwitters et moi-même pendant la guerre 1914, étaient les<br/>premiers à inventer et répandre ces jeux de sagesse et de clairvoyance qui<br/>devaient guérir les êtres humains de la folie furieuse du génie et les ramener<br/>plus modestement à leur place équitable dans la nature. La beauté naturelle<br/>de ces objets leur est inhérente comme celle d’un bouquet de fleurs cueilli<br/>par des enfants. Un empereur de Chine, il y a des milliers d’années, envoyait<br/>ses artistes chercher, jusque dans les contrées lointaines, des pierres aux<br/>formes rares et fantastiques qu’il collectionnait et plaçait sur un socle aux<br/>côtés de ses vases et ses dieux. Il est clair que ce jeu ne peut convenir à nos<br/>penseurs arrivistes modernes qui guettent l’amateur, comme un portier<br/>d’hôtel à la gare attend ses clients.<br/><br/>Chantes-tu encore avec un rire farouche la diabolique chanson du moulin<br/>de Hirza-Pirza en secouant tes boucles de tzigane, mon cher Janco? Je n’ai<br/>pas oublié les masques que tu fabriquais pour nos “Manifestations Dada.”<br/>Ils étaient terrifiants et ordinairement badigeonnés d’un rouge sang. Avec<br/>du carton, du papier, du crin, du fil de fer et des étoffes tu confectionnais tes<br/>foetus langoureux, tes sardines lesbiennes, tes souris en extase. En 1917 Janco<br/>exécuta des oeuvres abstraites dont l’importance ne fit que croître. C’était<br/>un homme passionné qui avait foi dans l’évolution de l’art.<br/><br/>Auguste Giacometti était en 1916 déjà un homme arrivé, pourtant il aimait<br/>les Dadaistes et se mêlait souvent à leurs démonstrations. Il avait l’allure d’un<br/>ours aisé et portait sans doute par sympathie pour les ours de son pays, une<br/>casquette en peau d’ours. L’un de ses amis me confia, que dans la doublure<br/>de ce bonnet, il cachait un livret de caisse d’épargne bien garni. Lors d’une<br/>fête Dada il nous décerna un souvenir de trente mètres de long, peint aux<br/>couleurs de l’arc en ciel et couvert d’inscriptions sublimes. Un soir nous<br/>décidâmes de faire modestement un peu de publicité privée pour Dada. En<br/>passant d’une brasserie à l’autre du Limmatquai, il ouvrait la porte avec<br/>précaution, articulait avec une voix forte et précise: “Vive Dada!” et refer-<br/>mait la porte en suite avec le même soin. Les consommateurs restaient<br/>bouches bées en lâchant leurs saucisses. Oue pouvait bien signifier ce cri<br/>mystérieux lancé par un homme mur et décent dont l’aspect n’avait rien d’un<br/>mystificateur ni d’un métèque. Giacometti peignait à cette époque des étoiles<br/>en fleurs, des incendies cosmiques, des gerbes de flamme, des gouffres flam-<br/><br/>89<br/>
boyants. L’intérêt de ses tableaux, pour nous, est qu’ils procèdent de la cou-<br/>leur et de l’imagination pure. Giacometti est aussi le premier qui ait essayé<br/>de réaliser un objet mobile, ce qu’il fit avec une pendule métamorphosée par<br/>l’adjonction de formes et de couleurs. Malgré la guerre, c’était une époque<br/>charmante dont nous nous souviendrons comme d’un temps idyllique à la<br/>prochaine guerre mondiale, lorsque transformés en beefsteaks allemands nous<br/>serons dispersés aux quatre vents, [illustrations 2-8]<br/><br/>De plus en plus je m’éloignais de l’esthétique<br/><br/>De plus en plus je m’éloignais de l’esthétique. Je voulais trouver un autre<br/>ordre, une autre valeur de l’homme dans la nature. Il ne devait plus être la<br/>mesure de toute chose, ni tout rapporter à sa mesure mais au contraire toutes<br/>choses et l’homme devaient être comme la nature, sans mesure. Je voulais<br/>créer de nouvelles apparences, extraire de l’homme de nouvelles formes. Ceci<br/>se précisa en 1917 dans mes “objets.” A leur sujet Alexandre Partens écrivit<br/>dans l’Almanach Dada: “Ce fut le mérite de Jean Arp, d’avoir découvert à<br/>partir d’un certain moment le véritable problème dans le métier même. Ceci<br/>lui permettait de le nourrir d’une imagination nouvelle et spirituelle. Il ne<br/>s’agissait plus pour lui d’améliorer, de préciser, de spécifier un systhème<br/>esthétique. Il voulait la production immédiate et directe comme une pierre<br/>se détachant d’un rocher, comme un bourgeon qui éclate, comme un animal<br/>qui se reproduit. Il voulait des objets imprégnés de fantaisie et non des pièces<br/>de musée, des objets animalesques aux intensités et aux couleurs sauvages,<br/>il voulait un nouveau corps parmi nous qui se suffit à lui-même, un objet dont<br/>la place est aussi bien d’être accroupi sur les coins des tables, que niché au<br/>fond du jardin ou nous fixant du mur ... Le cadre et plus tard le socle lui<br/>semblaient être des béguilles inutiles. ...”<br/><br/>Dans mon enfance déjà le socle qui permet à une sculpture de se tenir<br/>debout, le cadre qui enferme le tableau comme une fenêtre, furent pour<br/>moi des motifs de gaité, de plaisanteries et m’incitèrent à maintes espiègleries.<br/>Un jour j’essayai de peindre sur la vitre un ciel bleu sous les maisons que<br/>j’apercevais à travers la fenêtre. Ces maisons semblèrent ainsi reposer dans<br/>l’air. Parfois je sortais nos tableaux des cadres et regardais avec plaisir ces<br/>fenêtres accrochées au mur. Une autre fois je fixais un cadre dans une petite<br/>cabane en bois et sciais une ouverture derrière ce cadre. On apercevait alors<br/>un paysage charmant animé d’hommes et de bestiaux. J’invitais mon père à<br/>donner son avis sur l’oeuvre que je venais d’achever. Il me regarda étrange-<br/><br/>9°<br/>
ment et avec une légère surprise. — Comme enfant, je pris plaisir aussi à me<br/>percher sur le socle d’une sculpture écroulée et d’y mimer l’attitude d’une<br/>nymphe pudique.<br/><br/>Voici quelques dénominations de mes objets dadaistes: Tête d’Adam,<br/>Virgule Articulante, Perroquet Imitant Le Tonnerre, Montagne Au Plastron<br/>De Glace, Meuble Epelant, La Planche A Oeufs, La Bouteille A Nombril. La<br/>fragilité de la vie et des oeuvres humaines se convertissait chez les dadaistes<br/>en humour noir. A peine une construction, un édifice, un monument est-il<br/>terminé que déjà commence sa décrépitude, sa désagrégation, sa décomposi-<br/>tion, son émiettement. Les pyramides, les temples, les cathédrales, les tableaux<br/>de maître en sont des documents convaincants. Et le bourdonnement de<br/>l’homme ne dure pas bien plus longtemps que le bourdonnement de cette<br/>mouche qui vole avec tant de zèle autour de mon baba au rhum.<br/><br/>Dada voulait détruire les supercheries raisonnables des hommes et retrouver<br/>l’ordre naturel et déraisonnable. Dada voulait remplacer le non-sens logique<br/>des hommes d’aujourd’hui parle sans-sens illogique. C’est pourquoi nous frap-<br/>pions à tour de bras sur la grosse caisse dadaiste et trompettions les louanges de<br/>la déraison. Dada a donné un clystère à la Vénus de Milo et a permis à Laokoon<br/>et ses fils de se soulager, après des milliers d’années de lutte avec le bon saucis-<br/>son Python. Les philosophies ont moins de valeur pour Dada qu’une vieille<br/>brosse à dents hors d’usage, et il les laisse pour compte aux grands meneurs du<br/>monde. Dada dénonce les ruses infernales du vocabulaire officiel de la sagesse.<br/>Dada est pour le sans-sens ce qui ne signifie pas le non-sens. Dada est sans sens<br/>comme la nature. Dada est pour la nature et contre l’art. Dada est direct<br/>comme la nature. Dada est pour le sens infini et les moyens définis.<br/><br/>Die Nabeiflasche<br/><br/>Der Bürger sah im Dadaisten einen lockeren Unhold, revolutionierenden<br/>Bösewicht, sittenrohen Asiaten, der es auf seine Glocken, Kassenschränke und<br/>Ehren abgesehen hat. Der Dadaist ersann Streiche, um dem Bürger seinen<br/>guten Schlaf zu rauben. Er sandte Falschmeldungen an die Zeitungen von<br/>haarsträubenden Dadaduellen, in welche sein Lieblingsschriftsteller, der<br/>“König der Bernina,” verwickelt sein sollte. Der Dadaist liess den Bürger<br/>Wirrwarr und fernes, jedoch gewaltiges Beben verspüren, sodass seine Glocken<br/>zu summen begannen, seine Kassenschränke die Stirne runzelten und seine<br/>Ehren fleckig anliefen. “Das Eierbrett,” ein Sports- und Gesellschaftsspiel für<br/>die oberen Zehntausend, bei welchem die Teilnehmer, von Scheitel bis zur<br/><br/>91<br/>
Sohle mit Eigelb bedeckt, den Kampfplatz verlassen, “Die Nabelflasche,” ein<br/>ungeheuerlicher Gebrauchsgegenstand, in dem sich Fahrrad, Walfisch, Bü-<br/>stenhalter und Absinthlöffel paaren, “Der Handschuh” der an Stelle des<br/>altertümlichen Kopfes getragen werden kann, sollten dem Bürger die Un-<br/>wirklichkeit seiner Welt, die Nichtigkeit seiner Bestrebungen, selbst seiner<br/>so einträglichen Vaterländereien, veranschaulichen. Dies war natürlich von<br/>uns ein naives Unterfangen, da ja der Bürger über weniger Phantasie als der<br/>Wurm verfügt und an Stelle des Herzens ein überlebensgrosses Hühnerauge<br/>sitzen hat, welches ihn nur bei Wettersturz, das heisst bei Börsensturz, zwickt.<br/><br/>Bavarder<br/><br/>Comme Dada révéla à l’homme des sagesses éternelles, l’homme rigola avec<br/>indulgence et continua à bavarder. L’homme bavarde à en donner la nausée<br/>même aux rats. Pendant que sa voracité le force à fourrer dans sa gueule tout<br/>ce qui ne s’enfuit pas devant ses crocs, il arrive à bavarder et bavarde. Il<br/>bavarde tant que de frayeur le jour s’assombrit et la nuit pâlit. Il bavarde tant<br/>que les mers se déssèchent et que les déserts deviennent marécageux. L’impor-<br/>tant pour lui c’est de bavarder, car bavarder est une ventilation saine. Après un<br/>beau discours il ressent une grande faim et change d’opinion. Avec ça il prend<br/>la noble attitude de viande avariée. L’homme déclare pour rouge ce que la<br/>veille il appelait vert et ce qui est en réalité noir. A tous les instants il fait des<br/>déclarations définitives sur la vie, l’homme et l’art et ne sait pas plus que le<br/>champignon ce qu’est la vie, l’homme et l’art.<br/><br/>Fils de la lumière<br/><br/>L’homme enfoui dans sa vanité comme une taupe dans sa tannière ne com-<br/>prend plus le langage de la lumière, qui s’épanouit dans son inconcevable<br/>immensité à travers le ciel. L’homme se croit le fait de la création. La figure de<br/>la lumière ne l’inquiète plus. Il se confond avec la lumière. Ce crapaud s’ap-<br/>pelle volontiers fils de la lumière.<br/><br/>C’est à la raison démesurément développée que l’homme doit d’être un<br/>personnage grotesque et laid. Il s’est séparé de la nature. Il croit dominer la<br/>nature. Il croit être la mesure de toute chose. L’homme, engendrant contre<br/>les lois de la nature, crée des monstres. Il désire ce dont il n’est pas capable et<br/>méprise ce qu’il peut faire. L’artificiel et le monstrueux lui paraissent être<br/><br/>92<br/>
le but de la perfection. Tout ce qu’il peut atteindre, il le couvre de boue et de<br/>sang. Dans le monstrueux seul l’homme est créateur, les inaptes à cette besogne<br/>composent des vers, pincent la lyre ou brandissent le pinceau. Ce dernier<br/>groupe s’adonne avec une frénésie énigmatique à peindre des natures-mortes,<br/>des paysages, des nus. Depuis le temps des cavernes, l’homme peint des na-<br/>tures-mortes, des paysages, des nus. Depuis le temps des cavernes l’homme se<br/>glorifie, se divinise et cause par sa monstrueuse vanité les catastrophes hu-<br/>maines. L’art a collaboré à ce faux développement. Je trouve écoeurant cette<br/>conception d’art qui a soutenue la vanité de l’homme.<br/><br/>L’homme aime ce qui est vain et mort<br/><br/>Aussi dans l’art, l’homme aime ce qui est vain et mort. Il ne peut com-<br/>prendre que la peinture soit autre chose qu’un paysage préparé à l’huile et<br/>au vinaigre et la sculpture une cuisse de femme fabriquée avec du marbre ou<br/>du bronze. Toute transformation vivante de l’art lui paraît aussi détestable<br/>que les métamorphoses éternelles de la vie. Les lignes droites et les couleurs<br/>franches l’exaspèrent surtout. L’homme ne désire pas aller au fond des choses.<br/>La clarté de l’univers fait trop ressortir sa déchéance et sa laideur. C’est pour-<br/>quoi l’homme s’accroche désespérément à toute guirlande gracieuse et se<br/>fait spécialiste en valeurs. De ses neuf ouvertures encadrées de boucles,<br/>l’homme exhale de la vapeur bleue, du brouillard gris, de la fumée noire. Il<br/>tente parfois à se promener comme une mouche au plafond, mais échoue<br/>toujours, et tombe avec fracas sur sa table couverte de la plus belle vaisselle.<br/><br/>L’homme appelle abstrait ce qui est concret. Ce n’est pas étonnant, car<br/>ordinairement il confond le devant et le derrière tout en se servant de son<br/>nez, de sa bouche et de ses oreilles, c’est à dire de cinq de ses neuf ouvertures.<br/>Je comprends qu’on nomme abstrait un tableau cubiste, car des parties ont<br/>été soustraites à l’objet qui a servi de modèle à ce tableau. Mais je trouve<br/>qu’un tableau ou une sculpture qui n’ont pas eu d’objet pour modèle, sont<br/>toute aussi concrets et sensuels qu’une feuille ou une pierre.<br/><br/>L’art est un fruit<br/><br/>L’art est un fruit qui pousse dans l’homme, comme un fruit sur une plante<br/>ou l’enfant dans le sein de sa mère. Mais, tandis que le fruit de la plante, le<br/>fruit de l’animal, le fruit dans le sein de sa mère, prend des formes autonomes<br/><br/>93<br/>
et naturelles, l’art, le fruit spirituel de l’homme, fait preuve la plupart du<br/>temps d’une ressemblance ridicule avec l’aspect d’autre chose. Ce n’est qu’à<br/>notre époque que la peinture et la sculpture se sont libérées de l’aspect d’une<br/>mandoline, d’un président en habit, d’une bataille, d’un paysage. J’aime la<br/>nature, mais non ses succédanés. L’art naturaliste, illusioniste est un suc-<br/>cédané de la nature.<br/><br/>Je me souviens qu’en discutant avec Mondrian, il opposa l’art à la nature<br/>en disant que l’art est artificiel et la nature naturelle. Je ne partage pas son<br/>opinion. Je pense que la nature n’est pas en opposition avec l’art. L’art est<br/>d’origine naturelle et se sublime et se spiritualise avec la sublimation de<br/>l’homme, [illustrations 9, 10, 14]<br/><br/>Quelques lignes de Plotin<br/><br/>Pour ceux parmi les hommes dont l’âme a dépassé celle des mille-pattes,<br/>des araignées, des poux, des limaces, des mouches, des sangsues, des banquiers,<br/>des politiciens, et qui veulent s’approcher de la beauté et de la lumière je<br/>cite ces quelques lignes de Plotin: “Il faut d’abord rendre l’organe de la vision<br/>analogue et semblable à l’objet qu’il doit contempler. Jamais l’oeil n’eût<br/>aperçu le soleil, s’il n’avait d’abord pris la forme du soleil; de même l’âme ne<br/>saurait voir la beauté, si d’abord elle ne devenait belle elle-même, et tout<br/>homme doit commencer par se rendre beau et divin pour obtenir la vue du<br/>beau et de la divinité.”<br/><br/>Alte Freunde<br/><br/>Alte Freunde aus der Zeit des Dadafeldzuges, die stets für Traum und<br/>Freiheit eintraten, sind nun mit widerlicher Beflissenheit bestrebt, das Ziel<br/>der Klasse zu erreichen und arbeiten die hegelsche Dialektik zu einem Gassen-<br/>hauer um. Dichtkunst und Fünf jahresplan werden nun eifrig durcheinander<br/>gerührt, aber der Versuch im liegen zu stehen, wird nicht gelingen. Der<br/>Mensch wird sich nicht zu einer aufgeräumten, hygienischen Nummer<br/>machen lassen, die vor einem bestimmten Bildnis begeistert wie ein hypno-<br/>tisierter Esel ia schreit. Der Mensch wird sich nicht standardisieren lassen.<br/>Es ist schwer zu erklären, wieso die grössten Individualisten für einen Ter-<br/>mitenstaat eintreten. Ich kann mir meine alten Freunde nicht recht in einem<br/>kollektiven, russischen Ballet vorstellen.<br/><br/>94<br/>
Ein Magischer Schatz<br/><br/>Nur der Geist, der Traum, die Kunst führen zur wahren Kollektivität. Sie<br/>sind die Spiele, die den Menschen in das wirkliche Leben führen. Der Traum<br/>Hugo Balls lässt den Menschen aus seiner rätselhaften Körperlichkeit in der<br/>Wirklichkeit auferstehen. Wir sollten wie er täglich um Träume beten. Der<br/>Traum, die Kunst Hugo Balls, ist ein magischer Schatz; sie verbindet den<br/>Menschen mit dem Leben des Lichtes und der Dunkelheit, mit dem wirk-<br/>lichen Leben, mit der wirklichen Kollektivität.<br/><br/>Siehe Abbildung<br/><br/>Immer tiefer, immer finsterer wird das Schwarz vor mir. Es droht wie ein<br/>schwarzer Rachen. Ich kann es nicht mehr ertragen. Es ist ungeheuerlich. Es ist<br/>unergründlich.<br/><br/>Als mir der Gedanke kommt, dieses Schwarz durch eine weisse Zeichnung<br/>zu bannen und zu verwandeln, ist es schon zu einer Fläche geworden. Ich<br/>habe nun jede Angst verloren und beginne auf der schwarzen Fläche zu<br/>zeichnen. Ich bewege mich als weisse Farbe auf der schwarzen Fläche. Ich<br/>zeichne und tanze zugleich, mich windend und schlängelnd, einen sich<br/>ringelnden, schlängelnden, weichen, weissen Pflanzenringelreihen. Ringel-<br/>reihen Schlangenkranz ... Er dreht sich gut und wächst. Weisse Triebe trei-<br/>ben da und dort. Drei davon beginnen Schlangenköpfe zu bilden. Vorsichtig<br/>nähern sich einander die zwei untern. Siehe Abbildung. [Abbildung 11]<br/><br/>Der Magier<br/><br/>Der Verkauf meines ersten Reliefs in Paris im Jahre 1926 war schwarze<br/>Magie. Der Magier war der Kunsthändler Viot. Er hatte den Sammler D.<br/>durch verheissungsvolle Reden von unbeschreiblicher Schönheit bestrickt<br/>und in mein Atelier gelockt. Verquält wog D. mein kleines Relief bald in der<br/>linken, bald in der rechten Hand. Gegen das Gewicht schien er nichts ein-<br/>wenden zu können. Sein schöner Geizhals zierte eine schönere Krawatte. Er<br/>wendete und drehte sich. Er rang nach einem Entschluss. Er riss die Augen<br/>weit auf und schloss sie dann ermüdet. Er öffnete sie wieder und blickte<br/>verstört nach einer Gelegenheit zur Flucht. Nun hiess es aufpassen. Er schien<br/><br/>95<br/>
wirklich sein Heil in der Flucht suchen zu wollen. Mit geschwollenem Kamm<br/>stolzierte Viot um sein Opfer. Er prahlte und brüstete sich mit seiner unver-<br/>gleichlichen Kenntnis der schönen Künste. D. stöhnte: “Fünfhundert Franken<br/>für ein Brettchen ist viel Geld!” Viot gab nicht nach. Er liess nun das Dunkle,<br/>das Geheimnisvolle in sein Segel blasen. Wie zwei Zauberlaternen sprühten<br/>seine Augen. Immer dämonischer wurden seine Sprüche, bis schliesslich D.<br/>in einem Fauteuil zusammenbrach und Viot die fünfhundert Franken aus-<br/>händigte.<br/><br/>Pavillon de Breteuil<br/><br/>Au pavillon de Breteuil, à Sèvres, se trouve à la température de o degré<br/>le mètre international en platine irridié. Ce n’est évidemment pas avec ce<br/>mètre étalon qu’on mesure la grandeur des génies. Pour mesurer un génie les<br/>marchands se servent d’un mètre approprié en caoutchouc spirituel. Il doit<br/>pouvoir se faire long ou court. Il doit être court pour que le marchand puisse<br/>dire: “Regardez ce génie, comme il est grand: il mesure cent cinquante mètres.<br/>Dans ma boutique, vous ne trouverez que des génies qui dépassent cent<br/>mètres.” Le mètre doit être long pour que le marchand puisse dire: “Re-<br/>gardez-moi ça, ça ne mesure même pas un mètre. Ce n’est pas un génie: c’est<br/>un nain. Ce n’est pas un maître: c’est un millimaître.”<br/><br/>La partie gluante, visqueuse et pullulante de vers entre les cuisses du<br/>sanglier, sautée à la résine de sapin avec quelques noyaux de cerises pour<br/>croquer à la bonne franquette, est le plat préféré du grand veneur. L’exquis<br/>corps du marchand de tableau vous rend le choix plus difficile. Quelle est<br/>donc la partie la plus succulente, la plus savoureuse? Les peintres préfèrent<br/>les pieds. A première vue on dirait voir un objet rituel de l’époque pré-<br/>adamique. Mais lentement ils s’animent, bougent et disent papa et maman.<br/>Les pieds des marchands de tableaux ont la grandeur d’une palette d’artiste.<br/>Entre les doigts de pied de cette palette poussent les fleurs de la philosophie<br/>d’art. Les pieds des marchands de tableaux sont toujours tournés vers le fond<br/>de leur boutique où brûle le feu sacré dans le coffre-fort incirconcis. Comme<br/>l’aiguille d’une boussole ils sont jour et nuit en mouvement. Ainsi les pieds<br/>des marchands sont souvent tournés en arrière dans un sens opposé à leur<br/>marche. Au temps des ides vous voyez les marchands avec une désinvolture qui<br/>frise parfois l’inconvenance se déshabiller et se précipiter au nom de la beauté<br/>tout nus dans la rue, pour danser des rondes. Il n’existe guère de marchand<br/><br/>96<br/>
qui n’ait fait préalablement un stage comme danseuse aux Folies Bergère.<br/>Ils dansent avec perfection comme les étoiles de l’opéra sur les pointes des<br/>pieds, sur ces pieds beaux comme les pieds alexandrins de Racine.<br/><br/>Stein von Menschenhand geformt<br/><br/>Als ich meine ersten konkreten Reliefs ausstellte, erklärte ich in einem<br/>kleinen Manifest die Kunst des Bürgers für sanktionierten Irrsinn. Besonders<br/>diese nackten Männer, Frauen und Kinder aus Stein oder Bronze, die auf<br/>Plätzen, in Gärten und an Waldrändern aufgestellt sind und die unermüdlich<br/>tanzen, nach Faltern jagen, Pfeile abschiessen, Aepfel anbieten, Flöte blasen,<br/>sind der vollkommene Ausdruck einer unsinnigen Welt. Diese irrsinnigen<br/>Gebilde dürfen nicht mehr die Natur verunreinigen. Wie in den Zeiten der<br/>ersten Christen muss heute das Wesentliche bekannt werden. Unmittelbar<br/>muss heute der Künstler sein Werk erstehen lassen. Heute kommt es nicht<br/>mehr auf Spitzfindigkeiten an. Meine Reliefs und Skulpturen fügen sich<br/>natürlich in die Natur ein. Bei näherer Betrachtung jedoch lassen sie erken-<br/>nen, dass sie von Menschenhand geformt sind, darum nannte ich einige unter<br/>ihnen “Stein von Menschenhand geformt.” [Abbildung 12]<br/><br/>Der Keim einer neuen Plastik<br/><br/>Ein kleines Bruchstück einer meiner Plastiken, an der mich eine Rundung,<br/>ein Gegensatz reizt, ist oft der Keim einer neuen Plastik. Ich verstärke die<br/>Rundung oder den Gegensatz. Neue Formen sind dadurch bedingt. Unter<br/>den neuen Formen wachsen zwei besonders stark. Ich lasse diese zwei weiter<br/>wachsen, bis die ursprünglichen Formen nebensächlich und beinahe aus-<br/>drucklos geworden sind. Schliesslich unterdrücke ich eine der nebensäch-<br/>lichen ausdruckslosen, damit die übrigen wieder sichtbarer werden. Die<br/>Arbeit an einer Plastik dauert oft Monate, Jahre. Ich arbeite an ihr, bis<br/>hinreichend von meinem Leben in diesen Körper geflossen ist. Jeder dieser<br/>Körper hat einen geistigen Inhalt, aber erst nach vollendeter Arbeit deute<br/>und benenne ich ihn. So erhielten meine Arbeiten Namen wie: “Schwarzer<br/>Wolkenpfeil und weisse Punkte,” “Pflanzenwappen,” “Arabische Acht,”<br/>“Pflanzenpendel in Ruhe,” “Blätter nach dem Gesetz des Zufalls geordnet.”<br/>[Abbildung 13a, b, 15a, b]<br/><br/>97<br/>
Art concret<br/><br/>nous ne voulons pas copier la nature, nous ne voulons pas reproduire, nous<br/>voulons produire, nous voulons produire comme une plante qui produit un<br/>fruit et ne pas reproduire, nous voulons produire directement et non par<br/>truchement.<br/><br/>comme il n’y a pas la moindre trace d’abstraction dans cet art nous le<br/>nommons: art concret.<br/><br/>les oeuvres de l’art concret ne devraient plus être signées par leurs auteurs,<br/>ces peintures, ces sculptures, ces objets, devraient rester anonymes dans le<br/>grand atelier de la nature comme les nuages, les montagnes, les mers, les<br/>animaux, les hommes, oui! les hommes devraient rentrer dans la nature! les<br/>artistes devraient travailler en communauté comme les artistes du moyen-<br/>âge. en 1915 o. van rees, c. van rees, freundlich, s. taeuber et moi-même avons<br/>fait une tentative de ce genre.<br/><br/>j’écrivais en 1915: “ces oeuvres sont construites avec des lignes, des surfaces,<br/>des formes et des couleurs qui cherchent à atteindre par delà l’humain, l’infini<br/>et l’éternel, elles renient notre égoisme ... les mains de nos frères, au lieu<br/>de nous servir comme nos propres mains, sont devenues des mains ennemies,<br/>au lieu de l’anonymat, il y a la célébrité et le chef-d’oeuvre; la sagesse est morte<br/>. . . reproduire c’est imiter, jouer la comédie, danser sur la corde raide. ...”<br/><br/>la renaissance a exalté orgueilleusement la raison humaine, les temps nou-<br/>veaux, avec leur science et leur technique, ont fait de l’homme un mégalo-<br/>mane. la confusion atroce de notre époque est la conséquence de cette sur-<br/>estimation de la raison.<br/><br/>l’évolution de la peinture traditionelle vers l’art concret, à partir de cézanne<br/>en passant par les cubistes, a maintes fois été expliquée, et ces explications<br/>historiques ont embrouillé le problème, bruquement, “selon les lois du<br/>hasard,” vers l’année 1914, l’esprit humain a subi une transformation: un<br/>problème éthique s’est posé à lui. la plupart de ces oeuvres ne furent exposées<br/>que vers 1920. ce fut alors une éclosion de toutes les couleurs et de toutes les<br/>formes du monde, ces peintures, ces sculptures, ces objets, se virent dé-<br/>pouillés de tout élément conventionnel, dans tous les pays surgirent des<br/>adeptes de cet art nouveau. — l’art concret influença l’architecture, l’ameuble-<br/>ment, le cinéma, la typographie.<br/><br/>certains “objets surréalistes” sont également des oeuvres concrètes, dé-<br/>pourvus de tout contenu descriptif, ils me semblent très importants dans<br/>l’évolution de l’art concret, car, par l’allusion, ils savent introduire dans cet<br/>art l’émotion psychique qui le fait vivre.<br/><br/>l’art concret veut transformer le monde, il veut rendre l’existence plus<br/>
supportable, il veut sauver l’homme de la folie la plus dangereuse: la vanité,<br/>il veut simplifier la vie de l’homme, il veut l’identifier avec la nature, la<br/>raison déracine l’homme et lui fait mener une existence tragique, l’art concret<br/>est un art élémentaire, naturel, sain, qui fait pousser dans la tête et le coeur<br/>les étoiles de la paix, de l’amour et de la poésie, où entre l’art concret, sort la<br/>mélancolie, traînant ses valises grises remplies de soupirs noirs, [illustrations<br/>18, 27, 28 a, b, c]<br/><br/>Konkrete Kunst<br/><br/>1909 besuchte mich der russische Maler Rossine in der Schweiz und zeigte<br/>mir Zeichnungen, in denen er mit farbigen Punkten und Kurven seine innere<br/>Welt auf eine niegesehene Art dargestellt hatte. Es waren keine Abstrak-<br/>tionen von Landschaften, Menschen, Gegenständen, wie dies in den kubisti-<br/>schen Bildern zu sehen ist. Ich zeigte ihm Leinwände bedeckt mit einem<br/>schwarzen Gewebe, mit einem Netz wunderlicher Schriften, Runen, Linien,<br/>Flecken. Dies war das Resultat monatelanger, qualvoller Arbeit. Meine<br/>Kollegen schüttelten den Kopf und beurteilten meine Arbeiten als verun-<br/>glückte Skizzen. Rossine dagegen war sehr von meiner Arbeit eingenommen.<br/>Seine Arbeiten und meine Arbeiten waren, glaube ich, konkrete Kunst.<br/>Meine ersten konkreten Bilder, die erhalten geblieben sind, stammen aus<br/>dem Jahre 1915. Zwei solcher Arbeiten befinden sich in der Sammlung M.<br/>Hagenbach in Basel. Eine ähnliche Arbeit ist in der kleinen Anthologie<br/>cabaret Voltaire aus dem Jahre 1916 abgebildet. Diese Arbeiten sind Klebear-<br/>beiten aus verschiedenen Materialen, Papier, Stoff, Schnur, Stein, Holz.<br/><br/>Die Welt der Erinnerung und des Traumes<br/><br/>Gegen Ende ihres Lebens war Sophie Taeuber von einem wundersamen<br/>Licht verklärt, als wisse sie von ihrem nahen Ziel. Stets kannte sie den<br/>rechten Weg, wie ein Wanderer, der von einem hohen Turm aus die Wege des<br/>Landes überblickt hatte Sie strömte Kräfte aus, welche die Welt des Tages<br/>verwandelten. So strahlte einmal eine blühende Landschaft aus ihr, die eine<br/>gleichgültige Gegend, in der wir uns zufällig aufhielten, durchdrang, sodass<br/>sich diese prächtig und duftend entfaltete. Sie lebte stets mit der wirklichen<br/>Welt des Traumes verbunden. Nur Märchen von vollendeter Schönheit<br/>könnten den Glanz und das Licht ihres Wesens widerspiegeln.<br/><br/>99<br/>
In der Welt des Traumes und der Erinnerung wuchert undurchdringliches<br/>Dunkel und blüht reines Licht. Diese Dunkelheit und dieses Licht bedeuten<br/>jedoch nicht Tag und Nacht wie unser irdischer Tag, sondern sind eins mit<br/>dem Unendlichen. Wie Flammen und Wogen durchziehen die Toten und<br/>die Lebenden diese Welt. Sie ziehen unbeschwert durch die Räume und die<br/>Zeiten. Sie lösen Ebenbilder aus sich aus, die sich wie Echos vervielfältigen,<br/>sich freundlich zu ihnen gesellen oder sie feindlich verfolgen. Verwirrende<br/>Leiden und Freuden erwachsen daraus. Sie vertauschen ihre Gestalt mit der<br/>eines anderen. Sie vermummen sich. Tote begegnen sich wieder als Lebende,<br/>und Lebende ruhen seit langer Zeit im Grabe. Treffen wir diese Toten in<br/>unserer unwirklichen Welt des Tages an, so lachen sie und tun, als sei nichts<br/>dergleichen geschehen, und erzählen uns von nichtigen Geschäften. Auch<br/>wir Menschen des Tages werden in jener Welt mit dem Unendlichen eins.<br/><br/>Sie malte die Seele des Traumes, die unsichtbare Wirklichkeit. Sie zeich-<br/>nete lichte, geometrische Botschaften. Sie zeichnete Linien, die in grundlose<br/>Tiefen loten. Sie zeichnete ernste Linien, lachende Linien, weissglühende<br/>Linien, verwirbelte Linientänze, zackige Wirbel, Blitzgitter. Sie liess Linien<br/>wild um Linienbündel flackern, bis Linien und Linienbündel zu Blumen-<br/>bränden aufflammten. Sie liess Linien um erstarrte Punkte wirbeln, plötz-<br/>lich anhalten, sich hold besinnen und sich zu Formen zusammenschliessen,<br/>aus denen es glitzert wie ein Frühlingstag. Sie hat das goldene Strahlengebein<br/>der Sterne gemalt. Sie liess Punkte schamhaft erröten. Sie liess Punkte zu<br/>Beeren, zu riesigen Früchten, zu Sonnen anwachsen. Sie liess Punkte zu Asche<br/>zerfallen. Sie hat Perlen in weisse Beete gesät und daraus Monde gezogen. Sie<br/>hat Bahnen für selige Flüge gezeichnet. Sie hat das Leben der geschlossenen,<br/>nach innen singenden Augen gemalt. Sie hat den Umriss der Stille gezeichnet.<br/><br/>Meistens begegne ich Sophie unter den Olivenbäumen des Mittelmeeres. Da<br/>spasst sie, wendet sich um, hüpft davon, schlägt mit den Armen wie ein Vogel<br/>mit den Flügeln, wendet sich wieder um und kommt auf mich zu. Ein anderes<br/>Mal bietet sie mir eine grosse Traube an, deren Beeren weinende Augen sind.<br/>Mit klaren Blicken begegnet sie meinen verwirrten Blicken. Sie hatte Träu-<br/>me, von denen sie mir nie sprechen wollte. Sie verbarg sie mir hinter über-<br/>triebenen, poltrigen Spässen. Sie ging dann im Kreise umher und ahmte einen<br/>stummen, jedoch eifrig blasenden Trompeter nach und liess sich um keinen<br/>Preis bestimmen, mir ihren Traum zu erzählen.<br/><br/>Träume ich, wenn ich Sophie hell und still im Grunde der weissen Blüten-<br/>blätter eines weissen lauteren Sternes erblicke? Träume ich, wenn ich Sophie<br/>sprechen höre und wir uns unterhalten? Träume ich, wenn ich Sophie als<br/>Tote holdselig lebend sehe? Die Erinnerung und der Traum fliessen ineinan-<br/>der wie mächtige Ströme. Was in ihnen geschieht, hat ewigen Bestand. Was<br/><br/>100<br/>
22: Design in Paper.<br/><br/>101<br/>
2j: Taeuber-Arp and Arp, Duet Design.<br/><br/>102<br/>
<br/>
2/{: Torn and Colored Paper.<br/><br/>/<br/><br/>104<br/>
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io6<br/>
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26: Drawing and Torn and Colored Papers.<br/><br/>108<br/>
<br/>
2y: Interregnum. (plaster version)<br/><br/>110<br/>
I<br/><br/>I<br/><br/><br/><br/>28 a, b, c: Interregnum. (granite version)<br/>
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Ti<br/><br/><br/><br/>28 c:<br/>
2Q a, b: Lunar Armor.<br/>
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dagegen in der unwirklichen Welt des Tages geschieht, ist voller grober<br/>Tücken und vergänglich. Sophie handelte darum in dieser Welt streng und<br/>entschieden. Sie verlor sich nie in den Fallen der Unwirklichkeit. Die Welt<br/>der Erinnerung und des Traumes ist die wirkliche Welt. Sie ist der Kunst<br/>verwandt, die am Rande der irdischen Unwirklichkeit geformt wird. [Ab-<br/>bildung 19]<br/><br/>So schloss sich der Kreis<br/><br/>In den Jahren 1908 bis 1910 unternahm ich die ersten Versuche, die ererb-<br/>ten Kunstformen, die ererbten Vorurteile zu überwinden. Dies war eine qual-<br/>volle Zeit. Ich lebte einsam, zwischen Weggis und Greppen, in der Schweiz,<br/>am Fusse des Rigi. Im Winter sah ich monatelang keinen Menschen. Ich las,<br/>zeichnete und schaute aus dem Fenster meines kleinen Zimmers in die von<br/>Schneewolken verhangenen Berge. Es war eine abstrakte Landschaft, die<br/>mich dort umgab. Ich hatte Müsse zum philosophieren. Im Dezember 1915 be-<br/>gegnete ich in Zürich Sophie Taeuber, die sich schon damals von der tradi-<br/>tionellen Kunst befreit hatte. Wir unterdrückten in unseren Arbeiten<br/>zunächst das Spielerische, Geschmackvolle. Auch das Persönliche empfanden<br/>wir als lästig und unnütz, da es ja in einer starren, leblosen Welt gewachsen<br/>war. Wir suchten nach neuen Materialen, die nicht durch eine Tradition<br/>belastet waren. Einzeln und gemeinsam stickten, woben, malten, klebten wir<br/>nun geometrische, statische Bilder. Unpersönliche, strenge Bauten aus Flächen<br/>und Farben entstanden. Jeder Zufall wurde ausgeschaltet. Keine Flecken,<br/>keine Risse, keine Fasern, keine Ungenauigkeiten sollte die Klarheit unserer<br/>Arbeit stören. Für unsere Papierbilder wurde sogar die Schere, mit der wir<br/>zuerst diese Arbeiten ausschnitten, verworfen, da sie zu leicht das Leben der<br/>Hand verriet. Wir bedienten uns fortan der Papierschneidemaschine. In den<br/>gemeinsamen, grossen Stickereien, Webereien, Malereien, Klebearbeiten<br/>versuchten wir uns demütig dem reinen Glanz der Wirklichkeit zu nähern.<br/>Ich möchte diese Arbeiten die Kunst der Stille nennen. Sie wendet sich von<br/>der Aussenwelt der Stille, dem inneren Sein, der Wirklichkeit zu. Aus Rech-<br/>tecken und Quadraten errichteten wir dem tiefsten Leid und der höchsten<br/>Freude Strahlenbauten. Unsere Arbeiten sollten die Welt vereinfachen, ver-<br/>wandeln, verschönern. Unsere Kunst jedoch störte die Herrschaften in ihren<br/>überladenen Narrenställen nicht, woselbst sie sich ausgiebig an ihren Origi-<br/>nalölgemälden weideten. Zu verschiedenen Zeiten unseres Lebens haben<br/>Sophie Taeuber und ich gemeinsam Arbeiten geschaffen. Zuerst in Zürich in<br/>den Jahren 1917 bis 1919, in Strassburg ig2Ö bis 1928, mit Theo van Does-<br/><br/>117<br/>
bürg gelegentlich des Umbaues der Aubette, ferner im ersten Kriegsjahr in<br/>Meudon, 1939, von welchen ich mehrere in meinem Gedichtband “le siège<br/>de l’air,” 1946, abgebildet habe, und schliesslich, 1941, in Grasse gemein-<br/>sam mit Sonja Delaunay und Alberto Magnelli. Mehr noch als in meiner<br/>Jugend glaube ich heute, dass eine Rückkehr zu einer wesentlichen Ordnung,<br/>zu einer Harmonie notwendig sei, um die Welt aus der grenzenlosen Verwir-<br/>rung zu retten.<br/><br/>Ich entwickelte die Klebearbeit weiter, indem ich die Anordnung willenlos,<br/>automatisch ausführte. Ich nannte dies “nach dem Gesetz des Zufalls” ar-<br/>beiten. Das “Gesetz des Zufalls,” welches alle Gesetze in sich begreift und uns<br/>unfasslich ist, wie der Urgrund aus dem alles Leben steigt, kann nur unter völ-<br/>liger Hingabe an das Unbewusste erlebt werden. Ich behauptete, wer dieses<br/>Gesetz befolge, erschaffe reines Leben.<br/><br/>Um 1930 entstanden die mit der Hand aus Papier gerissenen Bilder. Das<br/>Menschenwerk erschien mir nun noch geringer als Stückwerk. Eine Abson-<br/>derung schien es mir zu sein. Alles ist ungefähr, weniger als ungefähr, denn<br/>bei genauerem, schärferem Betrachten ist das vollkommenste Bild ein war-<br/>ziges, filziges Ungefähr, ein getrockneter Brei, eine wüste Mondkraterland-<br/>schaft. Welche Anmassung verbirgt sich in der Vollendung. Wozu sich um Ge-<br/>nauigkeit, Reinheit bemühen, da sie doch nie erreicht werden kann. Der Zer-<br/>fall, der gleich nach der Beendigung einer Arbeit einsetzt, wurde nun von mir<br/>willkommen geheissen. Der schmutzige Mensch weist mit seinen schmutzigen<br/>Fingern auf eine Feinheit im Bilde tupfend hin. Diese Stelle ist fortan gekenn-<br/>zeichnet durch Schweiss und Fett. Erregt bricht er in Begeisterung vor einem<br/>Bilde aus und bespritzt es dabei mit Speichel. Ein zartes Papierbild oder eine<br/>Wasserfarbenmalerei ist verloren. Staub und Insekten sind ebenfalls eifrige<br/>Zerstörer. Das Licht bleicht die Farben. Die Sonne, die Wärme erzeugen<br/>Blasen, lösen das Papier, lassen die Farbe rissig werden, lösen die Farbe ab. Die<br/>Feuchtigkeit erzeugt Schimmel. Die Arbeit zerfällt, stirbt. Das Sterben des<br/>Bildes brachte mich nun nicht mehr zur Verzweiflung. Ich hatte mich mit dem<br/>Vergehen, mit seinem Tod abgefunden und ihn in das Bild miteinbezogen.<br/>Der Tod aber wuchs und frass das Bild und das Leben auf. Dieser Auflösung<br/>hätte die Verneinung jeder Handlung folgen müssen. Gestalt war zu Unge-<br/>stalt geworden, das Endliche zu Unendlichem, das Einzelne zu Ganzem.<br/><br/>Es war Sophie Taeuber, die mir durch das Beispiel ihrer klaren Arbeit und<br/>ihres klaren Lebens den rechten Weg, den Weg zur Schönheit zeigte. In dieser<br/>Welt besteht Oben und Unten, Helligkeit und Dunkelheit, Ewigkeit und<br/>Vergänglichkeit in vollendetem Gleichgewicht. So schloss sich der Kreis. [Ab-<br/>bildungen 20-26]<br/><br/>118<br/>
Arp by C. Giedion-W elcker, Zurich.<br/><br/>Arp was born in the Alsatian city<br/>of Strassburg in 1887. Situated at<br/>the foot of the Vosges Mountains<br/>and the Black Forest, this beautiful<br/>mediaeval city has for centuries been<br/>subject to a curious interplay of<br/>French and Alemannic elements.<br/>This is clearly reflected in both lan-<br/>guage and political development.<br/>Arp belonged to the harried and<br/>menaced generation that had been<br/>forced to bear the miseries that re-<br/>sulted from the neurosis for power<br/>and technical ingenuity being di-<br/>vorced from imagination. There<br/>were a few — the young Arp among<br/>them — who boldly stood up against<br/>everything that was spiritually bank-<br/>rupt and hypocritical. They kidded<br/>and parodied the complexity of daily<br/>existence and, with fanatical energy,<br/>endeavored — with success — to<br/>stimulate both a new and more ele-<br/>mentary mode of living and creative<br/>expression through art. They re-<br/>nounced the false educational<br/>clichés that asserted universal prog-<br/>ress. Culture was to be found among<br/>the primitives, among the “barba-<br/>rous” in the eyes of an over-organized<br/>and mechanical civilization. They<br/>were convinced that those elemen-<br/>tary forces that are the fruit of<br/>“thought sprung from fantasy,” as<br/>Vico formulated it in the 18th cen-<br/>tury, could liberate mankind and<br/>art from the sterility of mere vir-<br/>tuosity, from, among so much else,<br/>the excrescence of man’s intellectual<br/>and materialistic desire to be the<br/>all-important nucleus of the uni-<br/><br/>verse. The time had come for the<br/>constructive forces of the imagina-<br/>tion to take up arms against the rule<br/>of common sense. Vico’s struggle<br/>with the world of Descartes was con-<br/>tinued with increasing vehemence.<br/><br/>What else were the first Dadaists<br/>up against, if it was not the festering<br/>rational world, its spurious moral<br/>standards and its bloated beauty<br/>cult founded on outworn classical<br/>recipes? “We must destroy in order<br/>that the lousy materialists may in<br/>the ruins recognize what is essential.<br/><br/>. . . Dada wanted to destroy the<br/>rationalist swindle for man, and to<br/>incorporate him again humbly in<br/>nature. Dada wanted to change the<br/>perceptible world of man today into<br/>a pious, senseless world without<br/>reason.”1<br/><br/>Behind the seemingly nihilistic<br/>and destructive Dada actions lay a<br/>firm belief in those concealed prop-<br/>erties without which there can be no<br/>organic beauty, no human grace. It<br/>was high time indeed that Hugo<br/>Ball’s vox humana made itself heard<br/>to remonstrate against the stifling<br/>process of mechanization. From<br/>1916-18 an inspired medley of paint-<br/>ers, poets, dancers and diseuses gath-<br/>ered in Zurich to form the almost<br/>legendary Cabaret Voltaire/ anx-<br/>iously seeking for the “buried face of<br/>the time, its personality and origin,<br/>the cause of its affliction and its<br/>resuscitation.”z Somewhere in his<br/><br/>1. From Arp’s diary, Transition, 1932.<br/><br/>2. Arp, Tristan Tzara, Richard Hiilsenbeck,<br/>Hugo Ball, Emmy Hennings and Marcel Janco.<br/><br/>3. Written by Hugo Ball, who had come to<br/>
“Flucht aus der Zeit,” Hugo Ball<br/>says that art should be no more than<br/>“a motive, a method” towards such<br/>an end: it should be torn down, the<br/>Dadaists thought, from its high<br/>marble pedestal, and made to flow<br/>anonymously and freely from the<br/>vastness of pre-conscious life. Un-<br/>fortunately, few persons today are<br/>willing, or dare, to penetrate the<br/>mockery and the voluntary shabbi-<br/>ness of Dadaism, to acknowledge<br/>the immense constructive forces that<br/>lay behind. To Hugo Ball Dada was<br/>a “fool’s play founded on nothing at<br/>all, yet involving all higher prob-<br/>lems.”<br/><br/>This was the Dada of the Cabaret<br/>Voltaire, situated in one of the nar-<br/>row Gothic streets of ancient Zurich.<br/>This was the young Arp in his hey-<br/>day. During this period, his creative<br/>activity was marked by a definite<br/>urge towards the absolute, the di-<br/>rect; towards simplicity and, finally,<br/>towards anonymity: “les oeuvres<br/>d’art devraient rester anonymes dans<br/>le grand atelier de la nature, comme<br/>les nuages, les montagnes, les mers,<br/>les animaux, les hommes. Oui! les<br/>hommes devraient rentrer dans la<br/>nature, les artistes devraient travail-<br/>ler en communauté comme les ar-<br/>tistes du moyen-âge.” In his wooden<br/>and cardboard reliefs of this period,<br/>the simple objects of everyday life<br/>are given back their original magic<br/>by means of witty transformation.<br/>In a truly romantic sense, the tragic<br/>discordance between corporeal in-<br/>significance and the vastness of the<br/>universe becomes apparent in Arp’s<br/>extreme proportional contrasts, and<br/><br/>throughout his poetry. The sublime<br/>act of creation is reduced to a ludi-<br/>crous bagatelle. Absolute relaxation<br/>of the mind is opposed to ‘the<br/>cramped, hyperbolic pathos of the<br/>then contemporary German Expres-<br/>sionism, and the subsequent paro-<br/>dies of the politically active Dada-<br/>ists in the same country. The essen-<br/>tial difference of attitude between<br/>the Dadaism of the Cabaret Voltaire<br/>and that which flourished in Ger-<br/>many should be kept in mind: while<br/>the latter never became more than<br/>the hallmark of an economic infla-<br/>tion and was almost completely con-<br/>cerned with left-wing politics, the<br/>former, led by artists of great sensi-<br/>bility, directed the far more subtle<br/>attack on the parallel inflation of<br/>the mind.4<br/><br/>Apart from what in him was revo-<br/>lutionary and satirical, the young<br/>Arp possessed much that was quiet<br/>and contemplative. It was during<br/>this period that he became absorbed<br/>in the mystical writings of Lao-tse<br/>and Jacob Boehme. We find Arp<br/>making collages of grey, silver and<br/>black bits of paper.® The extreme<br/>architectural severity and almost<br/>religious asceticism of these com-<br/><br/>Zurich protesting against German militarism<br/>in 1916 and soon became one of the leaders of<br/>the Zurich Dada movement, together with<br/>Arp, Hiilsenbeck and Tzara.<br/><br/>4. Kurt Schwitters and Max Ernst should be<br/>mentioned here as the only German Dada-<br/>ists of the same mettle as those in Zurich.<br/>Schwitters, who called his art Merz (1919),<br/>was even strongly attacked in his own country<br/>for his creative and non-political attitude.<br/><br/>5. It should be remembered that Picasso and<br/>Braque were making collages as early as 1911-<br/>12, though with quite a different stress.<br/><br/>120<br/>
positions contrast gracefully with<br/>the calligraphic craftsmanship and<br/>“beauty” that “decorate” the world<br/>of other artists. The “object-reliefs”<br/>of the same period, full of unex-<br/>pected associations, are the product<br/>of Arp the jester. The same may be<br/>said of his poetry, in which there<br/>abound absurdities mockingly ex-<br/>pressed in inflated mannerisms of<br/>speech, in imaginative deformations<br/>of words, in puns and grotesque ir-<br/>rational images. The realities and<br/>banalities of everyday life are, for<br/>him, part and parcel of poetry.<br/><br/>A mere glance at the titles0 of<br/>Arp’s works illustrates to what an<br/>extent he was preoccupied with odd<br/>“configurations,” as he called them, of<br/>beings and objects, of bottles, mouths,<br/>neckties, navels, moustaches, leaves,<br/>anchors and heads, etc. How are we<br/>to explain his marked tendency, es-<br/>pecially typical of the early period,<br/>to break man’s body down into sun-<br/>dry parts? There can be no doubt<br/>that it springs from a desire to place<br/>man on the level of the innumerable<br/>things that surround him, “pour<br/>elles, il n’y a pas de quartier de<br/>noblesse,” Picasso has said. For Arp,<br/>man is not the crown of creation,<br/>but simple, lost, transient, like a leaf<br/>in the wind. Everywhere in his work<br/>a kind of romantic irony disrupts<br/>man’s bombastic self-satisfaction, re-<br/>ducing him to the humble scale of<br/>his surroundings. Precisely the same<br/><br/>6. Tête moustache et bouteille; Soulier,<br/>lèvres, nombril; Têtes et cravattes; Tête et<br/>feuille; Le gant; La moustache sans fin; Le<br/><br/>corpusculus; Objets placés comme l’écriture;<br/>Objets placés d’après la loi du hasard; Con-<br/>figurations, etc.<br/><br/>tendency is present in Arp’s poems,<br/>“The Pyramid’s Petticoat,” “The<br/>Cloud Pump,” etc. Arp starts by<br/>throwing everything conceivable<br/>into a vast bag which is thoroughly<br/>shaken in order to upset all logical<br/>order and to annihilate any rigid<br/>hierarchy of values. He subsequently<br/>conjures up a transformed world,<br/>full of ingenious and paradoxical<br/>ties between bodies and ideas, an<br/>irrational world where everything<br/>is fraternally compatible with every-<br/>thing else. New life is imparted to<br/>the basic unit of speech, the word,<br/>and its power to evoke images and<br/>associations. Consecutive descrip-<br/>tion (the result of a mechanical con-<br/>ception of time) is as foreign to<br/>Arp’s poetry as perspective (the re-<br/>sult of an analogous conception of<br/>space) is foreign to his art.<br/><br/>As early as 1908, Arp had been<br/>interested in the problem of defor-<br/>mation and in the deliverance of<br/>art from servile imitation. During a<br/>long stay in Weggis6 7 (Switzerland)<br/>in 1909-12, Arp, together with some<br/>Swiss artists, founded the “Mo-<br/>derner Bund.” The group arranged<br/>meetings and exhibitions in Zurich<br/>and Lucerne, through which they<br/>hoped to launch their ideas. How-<br/>ever, the most decisive influence<br/>upon Arp was his coming into con-<br/>tact with the well-known “Blaue<br/>Reiter,” a group founded in Munich<br/>(1912) by Kandinsky and Franz<br/>Marc. Even today Arp regards Kan-<br/>dinsky’s inspiring personality, next<br/>to Ball’s ascetic fervor, as one of the<br/>crucial experiences of his life. The<br/><br/>7. Where he first met Paul Klee.<br/><br/>121<br/>
friendship that developed between<br/>them was only ended with Kandin-<br/>sky’s death in Paris in 1944.<br/><br/>Of all the products of Arp’s crea-<br/>tive activity, his engravings have<br/>been most seriously neglected in ap-<br/>preciation. So freely do they accom-<br/>pany the text of early Dada publica-<br/>tions (his own books and those of<br/>fellow poets),8 so strong is the visual<br/>structure which the engravings im-<br/>part to the book as such, transcend-<br/>ing the limits of mere typography<br/>— that the term “illumination” is<br/>once again adequate. These illumi-<br/>nations clearly show how profoundly<br/>Kandinsky’s wood-engravings9 stim-<br/>ulated Arp, and to what extent he<br/>succeeded in transcribing them into<br/>a language completely his own.<br/>While Kandinsky’s early wood-en-<br/>gravings are explosive, full of the<br/>spontaneity of flaming handwriting,<br/>those of Arp flow endlessly, despite<br/>their firm structural composition.<br/>The silent and lyrical nature of Arp<br/>stands out clearly from the dramatic<br/>passion of Kandinsky. To the<br/>rhythmical flow of lines Arp adds an<br/>interplay of essential forms, a strong<br/>proportioning of black-and-white<br/>masses. From now on he tends more<br/>and more towards what can perhaps<br/>be adequately described as struc-<br/>tural growth, surely the most char-<br/>acteristic quality in Arp’s art.<br/><br/>Hugo Ball, his Dada days over,<br/>turned towards religion, opposed<br/>to a civilization’s commitment to<br/><br/>8. Tristan Tzara, Richard Hülsenbeck, Ben-<br/>jamin P£ret, etc.<br/><br/>9. In “Über das Geistige in der Kunst” (1912;<br/>revised English translation, New York 1947),<br/>“Klänge” (1913).<br/><br/>“progress,” wanting to foster instead<br/>a world more spiritual and mystical,<br/>as the romantic mind of Novalis had<br/>done before him. Arp, however,<br/>(who had moved to Paris-Meudon in<br/>1926, where he collaborated enthu-<br/>siastically with the Surrealists for<br/>four years) turned from irony as his<br/>primary mode of expression to what<br/>he calls “concretions,” bold trans-<br/>mutations of natural and of human<br/>growth into a plastic language of<br/>universal simplicity. While the “re-<br/>liefs” of Arp’s earliest period are in-<br/>fused with a weird atmosphere of<br/>the incidental and fragmentary,<br/>with the “shock” of new propor-<br/>tions, the totally plastic works that<br/>ensued seem to belong immediately<br/>to nature itself. Their elementary<br/>plastic language is somehow per-<br/>meated with the primary forces of<br/>growth, movement and change. Arp<br/>never resorts to a mere copying of<br/>nature; he acquired a mode of ex-<br/>pression analogous to that of nature<br/>itself: “Art is a fruit that grows out<br/>of man like the fruit out of a plant<br/>or the child out of its mother. But<br/>whereas the fruit of a plant acquires<br/>completely independent forms and<br/>never resembles a balloon or a presi-<br/>dent in a cutaway suit, the artistic<br/>fruit of man generally shows a ri-<br/>diculous resemblance to the appear-<br/>ance of other things. Reason tells<br/>man to stand above nature and to be<br/>the measure of all things. Reason<br/>has divorced man from nature.<br/><br/>“Owing to reason, man has be-<br/>come a tragic and hideous figure.<br/><br/>“I love nature, but never nature’s<br/>surrogate.”<br/><br/>122<br/>
Already, in the first three-dimen-<br/>sional pieces of sculpture of the early<br/>Meudon period, Arp began to intro-<br/>duce a new kind of monumentality<br/>in which creation naturelle and créa-<br/>tion humaine are amalgamated.<br/>Turning away from the daemonic<br/>quality of extreme proportional con-<br/>trasts, he arrived at a synthesis. Para-<br/>dox and irony are absorbed in favor<br/>of a more complete participation of<br/>human values, with life and nature.<br/>His sharp structural bias, far from<br/>becoming an end in itself, even<br/>stresses, through contrast, the struc-<br/>tural growth of his earlier period.<br/>He desired “to inject into the vain<br/>and bestial world and its retinue, the<br/>machine, something peaceful and<br/>vegetative<br/><br/>Earlier Arp had started out from<br/>the material itself, trying to bring to<br/>the surface plastically its autono-<br/>mous and latent forces. Later he be-<br/>gan, as it were, to choose and direct<br/>his materials quite freely, more and<br/>more confident of the existence of<br/>higher human values. The sudden<br/>death of Arp’s wife, Sophie Täuber,<br/>the integrity and stern consistency<br/>of whose works (1915-43) had con-<br/>firmed and inspired him throughout<br/>his creative struggle, should be men-<br/>tioned here, because it hastened a<br/>development already in progress. In-<br/>stead of papiers collés, Arp now con-<br/>centrated on papiers déchirés, intro-<br/>ducing for the first time a transitory<br/>element. The vulnerability of ma-<br/>terials to time is anticipated, and<br/>made an intrinsic component of the<br/>work. This attitude towards time,<br/>which also interests Picasso as ques-<br/><br/>tions of simultaneity and movement,<br/>is brought to direct expression in<br/>the work of Arp.<br/><br/>In 1943, Arp made several wood<br/>and marble reliefs which were of a<br/>marked angularity, as though of<br/>something shattered. The flowing<br/>interplay of positive mass-forms and<br/>the negative space-forms is main-<br/>tained, although we are conscious of<br/>the kind of felt vacuum that follows<br/>shock. This interlude of dispersed<br/>angularity recalls the severe early<br/>collages, as well as the nervous pa-<br/>piers déchirés of later date, in which<br/>transient things and death are di-<br/>rectly absorbed.<br/><br/>No doubt the most specifically<br/>stressed quality in Arp’s art is the<br/>interpenetration of natural growth<br/>fantastically transformed, plus clear<br/>mathematical structure. The float-<br/>ing cell-like forms — primary units<br/>of growth — are distilled, reshaped<br/>into consciousness as they pass<br/>through the artist. Arp’s proximity<br/>to elementary worlds, such as those<br/>of the child and of pre-history, is<br/>inherent, as it is with Klee and Miro,<br/>and never affected.<br/><br/>In contrast to Arp’s weird and<br/>dormant forms, which seem to be-<br/>long to other stratas of conscious-<br/>ness, those of Brancusi have some-<br/>thing mediterranean that emerges<br/>with incredible splendor from the<br/>material in which they are con-<br/>ceived. They should be visualized<br/>out in the open, immensely en-<br/>larged, as great symbols of enlight-<br/>enment. Arp’s forms are fraternally<br/>tied to the flowers, leaves and stones<br/>of the world; Brancusi’s are full of<br/><br/>123<br/>
the vastness of the seas, mountains<br/>and sky.<br/><br/>"The Tower” (1942-45) should<br/>be mentioned here, as it shows once<br/>more how Arp allows organic and<br/>architectural elements to oscillate.<br/>There is an endless interplay of<br/>forms and proportions between one<br/>mass and the next. Convertible and<br/>loose-jointed, the component parts,<br/>although entirely individual, form<br/>when put together a surprising en-<br/>tity that has no beginning and no<br/>end.<br/><br/>The synthesis which Arp has suc-<br/>ceeded in establishing between the<br/>natural and the consciously struc-<br/>tural, between chance and law, has<br/>caused artists belonging to the most<br/>divergent modern groups to ac-<br/>knowledge his achievement.<br/><br/>To Mondrian, whose works are<br/>the result of a more mathematical<br/>and architectural mind, “les formes<br/>neutres de Arp, qui tombent sur un<br/>fond neutre en dehors de toute de-<br/>termination”10 meant a confirmation<br/>of his own elementary and universal<br/>“neoplastic” compositions. Every<br/>trace of figurative representation,<br/>every particular form, is eliminated<br/>here in favor of a rectangular juxta-<br/>position of straight lines and pure<br/><br/>10. Piet Mondrian, L’Art nouveau et la vie<br/>nouvelle, 1931. Arp’s collaboration upon the<br/><br/>magazine De Stijl (founded by Théo van Does-<br/>burg), one of the most inspiring buttresses of<br/>the whole movement, as well as the collective<br/>achievement in the Aubette (Strassburg, 1926),<br/><br/>colors, “la nouvelle culture des rap-<br/>ports purs.”<br/><br/>The surrealist Max Ernst, whose<br/>paintings often have a marked lit-<br/>erary content and are as complex as<br/>his vision of reality (which is magi-<br/>cally haunted, subliminal and scien-<br/>tific at the same time), underlines on<br/>the other hand Arp’s hypnotic lan-<br/>guage. “He attracts and reflects the<br/>most secret, the most revealing rays<br/>of the universe. . . . His forms carry<br/>us back to forgotten paradises. They<br/>teach us to understand the language<br/>spoken by the universe itself.”11<br/><br/>That two artists so diametrically<br/>opposed as Mondrian and Ernst<br/>should join in recognition of Arp is<br/>surely very significant, and can only<br/>be explained by the fact that Arp’s<br/>art is one of the purest creative<br/>achievements of our time. This is<br/>largely due to a rare sensitivity,<br/>which enables him to penetrate and<br/>to disclose the mysteries of the nat-<br/>ural world in forms so elementary<br/>and structurally precise that they<br/>seem to belong to the origins of<br/>existence. His art spans aeons, re-<br/>flecting what is constant and con-<br/>stantly changing.<br/><br/>Translated by A. E. van Eyck<br/><br/>for which van Doesburg, Arp and Sophie<br/>Tiiuber-Arp executed the murals, show how<br/>excellently these two very different modes of<br/>expression can be combined,<br/><br/>li. Max Ernst, Arp, Art of This Century<br/>Exhibition, New York, 1944.<br/><br/>124<br/>
Bird Mask.<br/>
33■' Objects Placed According to the Laws of Chance.<br/><br/>126<br/>
34: Woodcut.<br/><br/>127<br/>
<br/><br/>128<br/>
j6: Torn Papers, 1946,<br/>using impression of<br/>woodcut at left.<br/><br/>37 a<br/><br/>129<br/>
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Biographical Note by Gabrielle Buffet-Picabia<br/><br/>Jean Arp was born at Strassburg<br/>on September 16, 1887.<br/><br/>In 1904 he came to Paris, where<br/>he was troubled and moved by his<br/>first contacts with modern painting.<br/><br/>In 1909 he went to Switzerland,<br/>settled at Weggis and worked for<br/>several years in great solitude. He<br/>was obsessed by a need for perfection<br/>and the absolute, which impelled<br/>him to seek an art divested of all in-<br/>dividual dynamism.<br/><br/>Arp was at Zurich in 1915. This<br/>was the period of “papiers collés”<br/>and accidental “objects,” rudimen-<br/>tary, irrational, useless, broken,<br/>found at random, which mark the<br/>first symptoms of the Dada spirit.<br/>Dada was active in Zurich from 1915<br/>to 1921, and he was one of its pro-<br/>moters. In 1917 Arp started work<br/>on his “Reliefs,” which, plastically<br/>speaking, are situated between the<br/>“Object” and the sculpture proper<br/><br/>of his late works. At the same time<br/>he published several books of poems<br/>which for him are equal in impor-<br/>tance to his plastic works. He often<br/>likes to pick up poems of his youth<br/>and introduce new passages which<br/>amplify the original text and change<br/>its meaning.<br/><br/>Arp settled in Meudon in 1926. At<br/>this period he met the surrealists,<br/>took part in their exhibitions and<br/>contributed to their magazines.<br/><br/>1930 to 1948. Arp’s creative sen-<br/>sibility impelled him to seek a di-<br/>rect, concrete art without imitative<br/>or symbolic trickery, and inspired<br/>purely sculptural works which iden-<br/>tify themselves with natural forms,<br/>without description or imitation.<br/>He has always been attracted by the<br/>idea of collective work; he has oc-<br/>casionally realized collective projects<br/>with certain friends, and particu-<br/>larly with Sophie Taeuber.<br/><br/>133<br/>
<br/>
'<br/><br/>Bibliography by Bernard Karpel<br/><br/>The largest portion of the bibliography constitutes a demonstration in print of the creative pro-<br/>ductivity of a distinguished poet and accomplished master of several arts. The references have been<br/>arranged into sections titled:<br/><br/>Books by Arp<br/><br/>Articles and Poems by Arp<br/>Collective Statements<br/>Graphic Work of Arp<br/>Illustration by Arp<br/>Articles on Arp<br/><br/>Obviously, the first three sections deal with the literary work of Arp, his poetical and critical ef-<br/>fort. While certain correlations of texts have been made in the bibliography, the unavailability of<br/>specific publications has not permitted a detailed comparison of particular titles. Owing to fre-<br/>quent republication and equally frequent modification of phraseology, such textual comparison is<br/>essential for complete accuracy. The published texts are frequently difficult to describe since, in the<br/>early dada period, they were published without the consent or editorial supervision of the poet.<br/>Their titles and form are to be accepted, by Arp’s explicit direction, with caution. The compiler<br/>hopes that this first record of Arp’s oeuvre will facilitate the task of literary collation that lies be-<br/>yond the scope of the present bibliography. *<br/><br/>While the references on the graphic and illustrative work of the artist are presumed to be inclu-<br/>sive, there has been no attempt to compile a catalogue raisonné of Arp’s achievement in this and<br/>other media. Commentary on Arp, including references to specific exhibitions, works and publica-<br/>tions, is represented only in part by this selected section of the bibliography. A complete record of<br/>articles on Arp is available at the Museum of Modern Art Library, New York.<br/><br/>The compiler acknowledges with gratitude the cooperation of Margrit Hagenbach (Meudon) and<br/>Hans Bolliger (Zurich) who supplied documentation for material not otherwise accessible, and in-<br/>terpretive notes based on their intimate knowledge of the career of Arp.<br/><br/>Abbreviations:<br/><br/>f : item has been included in this anthology<br/>[]: data supplied by compiler<br/>bibl: see item so numbered in the bibli-<br/>ography; ed: editor; il: illustration(s); incl:<br/>including; n.d.: not dated; no, nr: number(s);<br/>p: page(s); por: portrait(s)<br/><br/>Typical Entry:<br/><br/>Baron, Jacques Arp 6il Cahiers de Belgique<br/>ino6:22i-4 July 1928.<br/><br/>Explanation:<br/><br/>An article by Jacques Baron<br/><br/>titled Arp and containing 6 illustrations<br/><br/>of his work will be found in Cahiers<br/><br/>de Belgique, volume 1 number 6, on<br/><br/>pages 22t to 224, in the issue dated July 1928.<br/><br/>* “Die Dadaisten hatten sich für eine anonyme kollektive Kunst eingesetzt und Arp’s Ideal wäre<br/>auch heute noch anonym, wie die Natur, zu produzieren. Eine Bibliographie, die sich bemüht<br/>möglichst vollständig zu sein, dient nun allerdings nicht der Anonymität” (Hagenbach).<br/><br/>135<br/>
Books by Arps<br/><br/>X. Le Blanc aux pieds de nègre. Paris, Edi-<br/>tions de la revue Fontaine, 1945 (Collec-<br/>tion l’Âge d’or. 11).<br/><br/>Partly published in Les Quatre Vents no<br/>3:42-5 1945. See also bibl 53.<br/><br/>2. Gedichte: Weisst du schwärzt du. Fünf<br/>Klebebilder von Max Ernst. [2Ö]p Zu-<br/>rich, Pra Verlag, 1930.<br/><br/>“Die Gedichte . . . wurden im Jahre<br/>1922 geschrieben. Die Klebebilder . . .<br/>sind aus dem Jahre 1929.” Parts also<br/>published in Marie 7102-3:5 July 8 1926,<br/>De Stijl ^73-4:5-10 1926, no85-6:103-6<br/>1925-8; Der Sturm i5nr2 1924, iönrio:<br/>145-6 1925, Individualität 3:236 July<br/>1928, Les Quatre Vents no8:23 1947.<br/><br/>3. Die Kunstismen, herausgegeben von El<br/>Lissitsky und Hans Arp. up plus 48<br/>plates. Erlenbach-Zürich, München und<br/>Leipzig, Eugen Rentsch Verlag, 1925.<br/>Lettered on cover: Kunstism 1914-1924.<br/>Text also in French and English.<br/><br/>4. Konfiguration. Paris, Poesie & co., 1930.<br/>See also bibl 37,61.<br/><br/>5. Muscheln und Schirme. [3o]p incl 4Ü<br/>Meudon-Val-Fleury, Privately printed,<br/><br/>1939-<br/><br/>“Zeich7iungen von Sophie Taeuber, ty-<br/>pographie von Jan Tschichold, imprimé<br/>en Tchécoslovaquie.” Extracts trans-<br/>lated in Les Quatre Vents no8 1947 (bibl<br/>57,60).<br/><br/>6. Neue französischiche Malerei, ausge-<br/>wählt von Hans Arp; eingeleitet von<br/>L. H. Neitzel. [io]p plus 12 plates Leip-<br/>zig, Verlag der Weissen Bücher, 1913.<br/>Arp’s name is included without clarifi-<br/>cation, his participation being limited to<br/>advice to Neitzel on the choice of illus-<br/>trations (Hagenbach).<br/><br/>7. 1924, 1925, 1926, 1943: Gedichte. 25p<br/><br/>Bern-Bümpliz, Benteli A.-G., 1944.<br/><br/>Drawing by Sophie Taeuber-Arp. Edi-<br/>tion of 250 copies.<br/><br/>8. Poèmes sans prénoms. 3 dessins, Sophie<br/>Taeuber-Arp. 26p incl il Grasse, Pri-<br/>vately printed, 1941.<br/><br/>“Imprhnerie moderne, Cannes.” Limited<br/>edition of 150 copies with cover and 3<br/>drawings by Sophie Taeuber-Arp. 10<br/>copies issued with colored drawing by<br/>Taeuber-Arp.<br/><br/>9. Der Pyramidenrock. [7o]p Erlenbach-<br/><br/>136<br/><br/>Zürich und München, Eugen Rentsch<br/>Verlag [1924].<br/><br/>Includes drawing of Arp by Modigliani.<br/>Extracts first published as “Einzahl,<br/>Mehrzahl, Rübezahl.” See note bibl 44.<br/><br/>10. Rire de coquille. [i2]p incl il Amster-<br/>dam, Vordemberge-Gildewart, 1944.<br/>Limited edition of 100 copies dedicated<br/>to Sophie Taeuber-Arp, whose 4 designs<br/>accompany the poems. Prmted by J. F.<br/>Duwaer & Fils, Amsterdam; 25 copies on<br/>Barchem green, 75 on Van Gelder Hol-<br/>land paper.<br/><br/>11. [Die Schwalbenhode. Gedichte mit 6<br/>Originalholzschnitten des Verfassers.<br/>Berlin, Der Malik-Verlag, 1920]<br/>Although announced for publication,<br/>never issued as book. Most of the poems<br/>which appeared under this title (bibl 78)<br/>subsequently issued as “Der Vogel selb-<br/>dritt” (bibl 17). Extracts no.1-5 ap-<br/>peared in bibl 155, also partly printed in<br/>bibl 40,156.<br/><br/>12. Sciure de gamme. Collection “Un Di-<br/>vertissement,” 1938.<br/><br/>Also published in bibl 13.<br/><br/>13. Le Siège de l’air. Poèmes 1915-1945,<br/>avec huit duo-dessins par Arp et<br/>Taeuber-Arp, et un avant-propos par<br/>Alain Gheerbrant. 8il 140p Paris,<br/>Vrille, 1946 (Collection Le Quadrangle.<br/>0-<br/><br/>“Creux comme un oeuf,” A. Gheerbrant,<br/>P7-9. Sections titled: “1915 Chair de<br/>rêve,” “ 1917-1935,” “1936 Taches dans le<br/>vide,” “1937,” “1938 Sciure de gammes,”<br/>“1938 Les pigeons quadrangulaires,”<br/>“1939 Ce que chantent les violons dans<br/>leur lit de lard,” “1939-1942,” “Profil fil<br/>et espace,” “1944 Les saisons de l’horloge<br/>de la fraise des animaux veloutés et du<br/>berceau,” “1945.” Printed by Grou Rade-<br/>nez, Paris, in edition of 1000 copies.<br/><br/>14. Des taches dans le vide. [6]p Paris,<br/>Librairie Tschann (1937) (Les feuillets<br/>de “Sagesse,” collection anthologique<br/>no. 32).<br/><br/>Also published in bibl 13; Ramena 5<br/>nr3-4:70 1937 (extracts translated by<br/>Brzekowskï).<br/><br/>15. Très novelas ejemplares (Arcachôn,<br/>1931). 2il(por)83p Santiago [Chile],<br/>Editorial Zig-Zag, 1935.<br/><br/>Cover-title: Très inmensas novelas. Por-<br/>trait of Arp by Modigliani, portrait of<br/>
Huidobro by Arp, cover by Huidobro.<br/>See also bibl 16.<br/><br/>16. Trois nouvelles exemplaires [par] Hans<br/>Arp et Vincente Huidobro. Traduit de<br/>l’espagnol par Rilka Walter. 51p<br/>[Paris] Fontaine, 1945 (Collection L’Âge<br/>d’or. 20).<br/><br/>First published as “Très novelas ejem-<br/>plares” (1935). Extract published in Les<br/>Quatre Vents no<f 1946 (bibl 75).<br/><br/>17. Der Vogel selbdritt. [Berlin, Privately<br/>printed, 1920].<br/><br/>Imprint of Otto V. Holten. Most of the<br/>poems which appeared under the title<br/>“Die Schwalbenhode” (bibl 78) subse-<br/>quently issued in this edition.<br/><br/>18. Weisst du schwärzt du. See bibl 2.<br/><br/>19. Die Wolkenpumpe. 22p Hannover,<br/>Paul Steegemann, 1920 (Die Silber-<br/>gäule, bd.52-53).<br/><br/>Read at the 9. dada soirée, salle Kaufleu-<br/>ten, Apr 9 1919. First published extracts<br/>in Dada 4-3 (Anthologie Dada, édition<br/>allemande): [20] May 75 1919. Extracts<br/>also published in Der Zeltweg Nov<br/>1919; Die Schammade (Dadameter) P3-6<br/>Feb 1920, with cover and illustrations by<br/>Arp; Littérature 2^14:23-4 June 1920<br/>(translation by Breton and Tzara)-, Pro-<br/>verbe no6 (Invention noi): 2 July 1 1921.<br/>See also bibl 183.<br/><br/>Articles and Poems by Arp:<br/><br/>20. A fleurs des fleurs. iil Plastique noq:<br/>18-19 !939-<br/><br/>21. Abstract art, concrete art. P29-31 In<br/>Art of this century. 1942 (bibl 174).<br/>French text partly published in bibl 26,<br/>I4°>155-<br/><br/>22. L’Air est une racine. 4Ü Le Surréalisme<br/>au Service de la Révolution ino6:33<br/>May 15 1933-<br/><br/>23. Aisément à travers le tunnel de la<br/>matière. p[i-g] In Drouin, Galerie,<br/>Paris. Magnelli. Paris, René Drouin,<br/>éditeur, 1947.<br/><br/>“Poème en guise de préface” (Hagen-<br/>bach).<br/><br/>f Alte Freunde (p94).<br/><br/>Translation P31. Partly published in<br/>bibl 36,208.<br/><br/>24. Arabische Sprichwörter. Merz nr6:56<br/>Oct 1923.<br/><br/>25. Arpt the trapdrummer. Der Sturm<br/>141-0-7:108-9 !923-<br/><br/>26. Art concret, p 11-12 In Basel. Kunst-<br/>halle. Konkrete Kunst. 1944 (bibl 140).<br/>Extract of text published in bibl 21.<br/><br/>26a. Art concret, iil Réalités Nouvelles noi:<br/>10 1947.<br/><br/>Extract of essay fully published in trans-<br/>lation as “Abstract art, concrete art”<br/>(bibl 174).<br/><br/>26b. [Art concret] In 10 Origin, (bibl 104).<br/>An untitled foreword, extracted from es-<br/>say partly published in Réalités Nou-<br/>velles (bibl 26a).<br/>f Art concret (pi 13-15).<br/><br/>Translation pyo,72. Variant text of bibl<br/>26.<br/><br/>f L’Art est un fruit (P93-4).<br/><br/>Translation P31. Published as part of<br/>bibl 69a.<br/><br/>27. Die Augen sprechen miteinander wie<br/>Flammen auf Wellen. Abstrakt f Kon-<br/>kret no6:4 1945.<br/><br/>28. [. . . Aus Karaffen bläst der schwarz-<br/>gefärbte Weltgeist . . .] Merz nr2:2g<br/>Apr 1923.<br/><br/>Quoted in text of article on dada by<br/>Bonset (Theo van Doesburg). From bibl<br/>19.<br/><br/>f Bavarder (p92).<br/><br/>Translation P49. Published as part of<br/>bibl 69a.<br/><br/>29. Bagarre de fruits. L’Usage de la Parole<br/>inoi:6 Dec 1939.<br/><br/>Three poems: Quelles sont ces manières<br/>de tête de mort (fragment inédit). — Eh’<br/>bien voilà (published in bibl 8, 13).—<br/>La langue ne vaut rien pour parler (pub-<br/>lished in bibl 8,13).<br/><br/>. 30. Befiederte Steine. Der Sturm îqnrii:<br/>165-7 !923-<br/>Four poems.<br/><br/>31. Beiträge für “Enquête”: La poésie<br/>indispensable. Cahiers G.L.M. nog^g-<br/>60 1939.<br/><br/>32. Bestiaire sans prénom. P227-8 In<br/>Breton, André. Anthologie de l’humour<br/>noir. Paris, Editions du Sagittaire, 1940.<br/><br/>33. Das bezungte Brett, 4. Merz nr6:50<br/><br/>1923-<br/><br/>34. Die Blumensphinx. Der Sturm i5nr2:<br/>87-8 1924.<br/><br/>137<br/>
Cacadou supérieur.<br/><br/>Advertisements and translations referred<br/>to “Die Wolkenpumpe, cacadou supéri-<br/>eur” (bibl ip).<br/><br/>35. Cadaquez. Le Phare de Neuilly 1103-4:<br/>127 n.d.<br/><br/>Six poems.<br/><br/>Ce que chantent les violons dans leur<br/>lits de lard. See bibl 13.<br/><br/>36. Cerné zily. Blok 1002-3:40 1945.<br/>Translation by Kundera.<br/><br/>Chair de rêve. See bibl 13.<br/><br/>37. Configuration. p22 In Breton, André.<br/>De l’humour noir. Paris, Ed. G.L.M.,<br/>1937-<br/><br/>Also published in Le Phare de Neuilly<br/>no3-4-.126, Orbes «04:55-7 Winter 1932-<br/>33-<br/><br/>38. Le Cor enchanté. L’Usage de la Parole<br/>ino2:27-8 Feb 1940.<br/><br/>Translation by Arp and Hugnet of selec-<br/>tions from ‘‘Des Knaben Wunderhorn”<br/>by Brentano & Arnim.<br/><br/>39. Cot cot cot. Les Quatre Vents no8:23<br/>1947-<br/><br/>Selection from “Weisst du schwärzt du”<br/>(bibl 2) translated by Arp.<br/><br/>40. La Couille d’hirondelle (extrait). 391<br/>noi4:7 Nov 1920.<br/><br/>Translated by Tristan Tzara from bibl<br/>78.<br/><br/>f Dadaland (p86-8,go).<br/><br/>Translation p4o,43~y. Partly published<br/>in bibl 87.<br/><br/>41. Déclaration. p[2] In Dada intirol au-<br/>grandair der Sängerkrieg (bibl 156).<br/>Tzara discovered the word ‘‘dada” Feb 8<br/>1916.<br/><br/>42. Diese Arbeiten sind Bauten aus Linien,<br/>Flächen, Formen, Farben. See bibl 197.<br/><br/>f De plus en plus je m’éloignais de l’es-<br/>thétique (P90-1).<br/><br/>Translation P47-8. New, unpublished<br/>text.<br/><br/>43. Devant la chambre les fileuses les lions.<br/>The Little Review p22 Spring 1924.<br/><br/>44. Einzahl, Mehrzahl, Rübezahl. G m3:<br/>48-9 June 1924.<br/><br/>Extracts, with commentary by Hans<br/>Richter. Also published in Fraenger,<br/>Wilhelm. Deutscher Humor aus 5 Jahr-<br/>hunderten. Band II -.423-30 München,<br/>R. Piper Verlag, 1923. “Es war der erste<br/><br/>138<br/><br/>Entwurf für das Buch, das dann unter<br/>dem Titel ‘Pyramidenrock’ erschienen<br/>ist” (Hagenbach). See bibl 9.<br/><br/>45. Der entthronte Tag. Cahiers Alsaciens<br/>et Lorrains 6no8-g:ii5 1931.<br/><br/>“Corr. à Tagesgerippe” (bibl 84).<br/><br/>46. Die Etablierung der Eulalia, 2. Merz<br/>nr6:50 Oct 1923.<br/><br/>47. Die fahneflüchtigen Engel stürzen<br/>verhetzt herein. 2il Manomètre no8<br/>Dec 1925.<br/><br/>Also published in bibl 7.<br/>f Fils de la lumière (P92-3).<br/><br/>Translation P49-30. Published as part<br/>of bibl 69a.<br/><br/>47a. [Gedächtsnisausstellung Kurt Schwit-<br/>ters] 1948.<br/><br/>Commentary in announcement of me-<br/>morial exhibit held by the Galerie d’Art<br/>Moderne, Basel, Feb 1948.<br/><br/>48. Die gestiefelte[n] Sterne. De Stijl no7g-<br/>84: 72-6 1927.<br/><br/>i. Für Wilhelm Fraenger. — 2. Für So-<br/>phie Taeuber Arp. — 3. Für C. Giedion<br/>Welcher. — 4. Für Theo van Doesburg.<br/>No. i,2,4,7 published in bibl 209.<br/><br/>49. Gedichte. Individualität 3:236 July<br/>1928.<br/><br/>“3 Gedichte, Fragmente und Varianten<br/>für ‘Weisst du schwärzt du’” (bibl 2).<br/><br/>50. Gedichte. Konkretion noi:5 Sept 15<br/>1935-<br/><br/>51. Gedichte. Red ino2:37~8; 009:283 1928.<br/><br/>52. Gedichte. Der Sturm i5nr2:88-92 1924.<br/>“Das lichtscheue Paradies. — Weisst du<br/>schwärzt du (andere Fassung). — Das ley-<br/>derne Gebet — Eins ums andere.”<br/><br/>53. Le Grand sadique à tout casser. P36<br/>In La Conquête du monde par l’image.<br/>Paris, Éditions de la Main à Plume,<br/>1942.<br/><br/>Subsequently published in bibl 1.<br/><br/>54. Die Hasenkaserne. Merz nr4:45 July<br/><br/>1923-<br/><br/>J Die heilige Stille (P83).<br/><br/>Translation P37. New, unpublished text.<br/><br/>55. Histoire arabesque. Vrille noi:[82-3]<br/>July 25 1945.<br/><br/>Also published in bibl 13, P49-30.<br/>f L’Homme aime ce qui est vain et mort<br/>(P93)-<br/><br/>Translation pyo. Published as part of<br/>69a.<br/>
L’Homme qui a perdu son squelette. See<br/>bibl 81.<br/><br/>Ich bin der grosse derdiedas. See bibl 70.<br/><br/>56. Ich bin in Strassburg geboren . . .<br/>Cahiers Alsaciens et Lorrains 6no8-g:<br/>xi6 1931.<br/><br/>Complete text published in Vertigral<br/>1932 (bibl 208).<br/><br/>57. Il chante, il chante. (Zurich, 1922). Les<br/>Quatre Vents no8:22~4 1947.<br/><br/>Three poems translated by Arp from<br/>“Muscheln und Schirme’’ (bibl ß).<br/><br/>Im Glashocker singt eine süsse Stimme.<br/>See bibl 83.<br/><br/>■f In dem Höcker aus Glas singt eine süsse<br/>Stimme (pi5,i7).<br/><br/>Translation pi4,i6. See also bibl 84.<br/><br/>58. Introduction. p[i-2] In Ernst, Max.<br/>Histoire naturelle. Paris, 1926.<br/><br/>Partly published in La Révolution Sur-<br/>réaliste 2noy (bibl 86).<br/><br/>f Introduction à l’Histoire naturelle de<br/>Max Ernst (p84~6).<br/><br/>Translation P38-9. Full text, partly pub-<br/>lished in bibl 38.<br/><br/>58a. [Introduction] ln Allendy, Colette, Ga-<br/>lerie. Tapisseries et broderies abstraites.<br/>p[i—2] Paris, 1948.<br/><br/>Prefatory note for exhibition catalog,<br/>written jointly with Camille Bryen.<br/><br/>59. Jadro Jaskolcze. Plon 6^39:2 1938.<br/><br/>Five poems.<br/><br/>60. Je suis un cheval. (Meudon, 1934). Les<br/>Quatre Vents no8:24-5 1947.<br/><br/>Translated by Arp from “Muscheln und<br/>Schirme” (bibl ß).<br/><br/>f Kaspar ist tot (pio).<br/><br/>Translation pio.<br/><br/>j- Der Keim einer neuen Plastik (pii3).<br/>Translation pyo. New, unpublished text.<br/><br/>61. Konfiguration. (Zurich 1918). Vertigral<br/>[noi]:i-3 July 1932.<br/><br/>Also published in Transition no22:8-p<br/>Feb 1933, Konkretion noa-.^y Oct iß<br/>I935-<br/><br/>j- Konkrete Kunst (pus).<br/><br/>Translation py2,y4. New, unpublished<br/>text.<br/><br/>Das leyderne Gebet — Eins ums andere.<br/>See bibl 52.<br/><br/>62. Das lichtscheue Paradies, 1-8. De Stijl<br/><br/>139<br/><br/>7^75-6:45-6; 11077:79-80; ^78:93-4<br/><br/>1926-7; 7^85-6:103-6 1927-8.<br/><br/>Extracts published in Der Sturm ißnra<br/>1924; L’Esprit Nouveau nouay 1926?;<br/>Transition noy.130-1 Oct i92y (trans-<br/>lated by Eugene Jolas).<br/><br/>63. Liedertafel. De Stijl 6noio-i 1:148<br/>1924-5-<br/><br/>63a. Lüften er en rod pi3 In Tvivlens pla-<br/>geaand, surrealistisk anthologie . . .<br/>udvalgt af Claude Serbanne . . .<br/><br/>Aarhus, Forlag W.T.C.(?), 1947.<br/><br/>1 Der Magier (p95~6).<br/><br/>Translation pß2. New, unpublished text.<br/><br/>j- Ein magischer Schatz (p95).<br/><br/>Translation pß2. Partly published in<br/>bibl ß6,2o8.<br/><br/>64. Man Ray. In Six, Librairie, Paris. Expo-<br/>sition dada Man Ray du 3 au 31 décem-<br/>bre 1921.<br/><br/>65. Manifeste du crocrodarium dada. Litté-<br/>rature 2noi3:i2 May 1920.<br/><br/>“Von Tristan Tzara geschrieben und mit<br/>Arp’s Namen signiert” (Hagenbach).<br/><br/>66. Manchas en el vacio. Total 2:25 July<br/><br/>1938-<br/><br/>67. Marmelsteinbälge, Schneetlehem. Oeso-<br/>phage 1:2 Mar 1925.<br/><br/>Four poems dated 1918,1921,1924.<br/><br/>Le monde du souvenir et du rêve. See<br/>bibl 95,146.<br/><br/>f Das Maass aller Dinge (p8i).<br/><br/>Translation pßß. Neiv, unpublished text.<br/><br/>f Monte Carlo (pi8).<br/><br/>Translation P19. Published in bibl 13.<br/><br/>68. Nabel, Tische, Beine.I,II,III. ilO 2noig:<br/>121 Feb 15 1929.<br/><br/>f Die Nabelflasche (pgi-2).<br/><br/>Translation P49. New, unpublished text.<br/><br/>69. Notes from a diary. Transition no2i:<br/>190-4 Mar 1932.<br/><br/>Translated from the German by Eugene<br/>Jolas. Brief extracts published in French<br/>and English in Continuity no2:\y-8]<br/>x945*<br/><br/>j- Oben und Unten (p82).<br/><br/>Translation P36. First published in bibl<br/>197.<br/><br/>69a. L’Oeuf de Kiesler et la salle des su-<br/>perstitions. Cahiers d’Art 22:281,283,286<br/>1947-<br/>
Perroquet supérieur. See bibl 19.<br/><br/>Les Pigeons quadrangulaires. See bibl<br/>13-<br/><br/>f Pavillon de Breteuil (pg6).<br/><br/>Translation p6p. Also published in bibl<br/>21.<br/><br/>70. [Poema] Iman Apr 1931.<br/><br/>Two poems translated by L. Vargas: “Yo<br/>soy el gran él la lo (Ich bin der grosse<br/>derdiedas), El saca de su negro ataud.”<br/><br/>71. Poema, 4. 3Ü D’Aci i dAdla 2200179:<br/>[48-9] Dec 1934.<br/><br/>“Perolquè és que el substitura” . . . P48.<br/>— “El fuets peten” . . . P49.<br/><br/>72. [Poèmes] 2il Abstrakt f Konkret no6:2~3<br/>1945-<br/><br/>“Vite une tranche de terre, Tu étais clair<br/>et calme, Les roses et les étoiles” in the<br/>Bulletin de la Galerie des Eaux Vives,<br/>Zurich, accompanied by 2 woodcuts.<br/><br/>73. [Poèmes] îil Bifur 005:69-72 Apr 1930.<br/>Four poems dated Zurich 1916, Rome<br/>1922, Paris 1929.<br/><br/>La Pompe des nuages. See bibl 19.<br/>[Préface. Zurich 1915] See bibl 197.<br/><br/>Profil fil et espàce. See bibl 13.<br/><br/>f Quelques lignes de Plotin (p94).<br/><br/>Translation pyi. New, unpublished text.<br/><br/>f Rosen schreiten auf Strassen aus Porzel-<br/>lan (pi3).<br/><br/>Translation pi2. Published in bibl 5.<br/>Les Roses et les étoiles. See bibl 72.<br/><br/>f Les Saisons de l’horloge de la fraise des<br/>animaux veloutés et du berceau (p2i).<br/>Translation p2o. Published in bibl 19.<br/><br/>74. Les Saisons leurs astérisques et leur<br/>pions. Plastique 004:20-1 1939.<br/><br/>Also published in “Le Siège de l’air,”<br/>p6q (bibl 19).<br/><br/>75. Sauvez vos yeux. Les Quatre Vents no4:<br/>30-8 1946.<br/><br/>From “Trois nouvelles exemplaires”<br/>(1bibl 16)-<br/><br/>76. Schneetlehem. The Little Review P27<br/>Spring-Summer 1926.<br/><br/>See also bibl 67-<br/><br/>77. Schnurrmilch. De Stijl 7:9-10 1926.<br/><br/>f Die Schönheit versank nicht unter den<br/>Trümmern der Jahrhunderte (P31).<br/>Translation P35. New, unpublished text.<br/><br/>78. Die Schwalbenhode.<br/><br/>Extracts appeared in Dada Almanach<br/>(bibl 154) P114-16, 145-6; Dada Au<br/>Grand Air (bibl 156); Manomètre 2 Oct<br/>1922; Mécano no4~5:6 1925; 591 noi4’.<br/>7 Nov 1920 (bibl 40). See also note bibl<br/>11.<br/><br/>79. s’Fatagagalied. p[2] ln Dada intirol<br/>augrandair der Sängerkrieg (bibl 101).<br/>Signed: Arp and Max Ernst (Fatagaga).<br/><br/>80. Le Siège du ciel. Le Phare de Neuilly<br/>no2:13-16 n.d.<br/><br/>Translation by Georges Hugnet.<br/><br/>The skeleton of the day. See bibl 84.<br/>Sophie Taeuber-Arp. See bibl 193.<br/><br/>f Siehe Abbildung (p95).<br/><br/>Translation P52.<br/><br/>f So schloss sich der Kreis (pi 17-8).<br/><br/>Translation P76-J. New, unpublished<br/>text.<br/><br/>f Sophie (p29,3i).<br/><br/>Translation p28,30.<br/><br/>81. Le Squelette en vacances. Plastique<br/>005:2-3 1939.<br/><br/>Chapter 4 of “L’Homme qui a perdu<br/>son squelette; roman par Arp, Carring-<br/>ton, Duchamp, Eluard, Hugnet, Prassi-<br/>nos et Ernst.”<br/><br/>f Stein von Menschenhand geformt (pi 13).<br/>Translation P69-J0. New, unpublished<br/>text.<br/><br/>81a. Le Style éléphant contre le style bidet.<br/>14 Rue du Dragon noi: 14(1933?].<br/><br/>82. Sur un tableau de Fernandez, ou His-<br/>toire arabesque. Climat Parisien Dec 19<br/>*935-<br/><br/>See also bibl 55.<br/><br/>f83. A sweet voice sings in the hump of glass.<br/>2il Possibilities 1:16 Winter 1947-48.<br/>“Meudon 1956.” Translation, by Ralph<br/>Manheim, of “Im Glashocker singt eine<br/>süsse Stimme.” Illustrations: pi5,19. Also<br/>published in bibl 50.<br/><br/>84. Das Tagesgerippe. Transition no21:150-<br/>2 Mar 1932.<br/><br/>See also bibl 45,184. Translation by<br/>Eugene Jolas in Transition no26:9~i2<br/>I937-<br/><br/>-j- Ein Teil der Wirklichkeit (P83).<br/><br/>Translation P36—J. New, unpublished<br/>text.<br/><br/>140<br/>
85. Tension de sol. In Allendy, Collette,<br/>Galerie, Paris. George L.-K. Morris, no-<br/>vembre 1947.<br/><br/>“Prose poétique en guise d’introduc-<br/>tion” (.Hagenbach).<br/><br/>85a. [Testimonianze] P4-5 In Guggenheim,<br/>Peggy & Alfieri, Bruno. La collezione<br/>Peggy Guggenheim. Venezia [Instituto<br/>tipografico éditoriale] 1948.<br/><br/>86. [Texte surréaliste] La Révolution Sur-<br/>réaliste 2no7:23 June 15 1926.<br/><br/>Extract from the preface to Ernst (bibl<br/>58).<br/><br/>87. Tibiis canere (Zurich, 1915-20). lil<br/>XXe Siècle 1001:41-4 Mar 1938.<br/>Reproduces Janco’s painting “Cabaret<br/>Voltaire.”<br/><br/>Tu étais claire et calme. See bibl 72.<br/><br/>f Träumer (P83-4).<br/><br/>Translation P37-8. New, unpublished<br/>text.<br/><br/>88. Die Traumkanzel. Der Sturm 15^3:168-<br/>9 !924-<br/><br/>f Trug, Schein, Kunststück (p82).<br/><br/>Translation P35-6. New, unpublished<br/>text.<br/><br/>89. L’Usage de la parole, pioi In Guggen-<br/>heim, Peggy. Art of this century (bibl<br/>174)-<br/><br/>Extract in English.<br/><br/>f Veines noires (P23).<br/><br/>Translation p22. Published in bibl 13.<br/><br/>90. [Die Vierjahreseziten . . .] Merz nr6:<br/>rear cover 1923.<br/><br/>f Violettes rouges (p25,27).<br/><br/>Translation p2q,26. Published in bibl<br/>IT<br/><br/>91. Vite une tranche de terre. See bibl 72.<br/>Also published in “Le Siège de l’air”<br/>P77 (Ml 13)■<br/><br/>92. Von der letzten Malerei. Der Sturm<br/>4^188-9:140 Dec 1913.<br/><br/>93. Von Zeichnungen aus der Kokoschka-<br/>Mappe. Der Sturm 4^190-1:151 Dec<br/><br/>1913-<br/><br/>94. Wee onze goede Kaspar is dood. Mecano<br/>004-5:12 1923.<br/><br/>Translation by Van Doesburg.<br/><br/>•(•95. Die Welt der Erinnerung und des<br/>Traumes (p 115-7).<br/><br/>Translation P73-6. Published in bibl<br/>146, and a portion in Zürich. Kunsthaus.<br/>Katalog der Allianz. p[6] Oct 1947.<br/><br/>f Wirklichkeit (p82).<br/><br/>Translation P36. First published in bibl<br/>197.<br/><br/>96. Der Würfel. Der Sturm 14^12:184,186<br/><br/>x923-<br/><br/>By Arp and Kurt Schwitters.<br/><br/>97. Zwei Maler, II. P55-7 In Debrunner,<br/>Hugo. Wir entdecken Kandinsky. Zu-<br/>rich, Origo-Verlag, 1947.<br/><br/>A commentary, largely by Arp, on Was-<br/>sily Kandinsky.<br/><br/>Collective Statements:<br/><br/>Although Arp’s name is attached to these<br/>announcements, he played no active part<br/>in preparing them (Hagenbach).<br/><br/>98. Dada soulève tout. 2p Paris, Au Sans<br/>Pareil, 1921.<br/><br/>Printed announcement, dated Jan 12<br/>1921, signed by Varèse, Tzara, Soupault,<br/>Arp and others.<br/><br/>99. Hands off love. La Révolution Surré-<br/>aliste 3009:1-6 Oct 1 1927.<br/><br/>“Surrealist manifesto” in French on<br/>Charlie Chaplin signed by French artists<br/>and writers. Modified version, in English,<br/>published in Transition no6 omits Arp’s<br/>name.<br/><br/>100. Manifest Proletkunst. Merz m2124-5<br/>Apr 1923.<br/><br/>Signed by Arp, Doesburg, Schwitters,<br/>Spengemann and Tzara.<br/><br/>101. Permettez! 4p Paris, 1927.<br/><br/>Printed letter, dated Oct 23 1927, ad-<br/>dressed to officials of Ardennes and<br/>Charleville protesting the memorial to<br/>Rimbaud. Signed by Maxim Alexandre,<br/>Aragon, Arp, Breton, Desnos, Eluard,<br/>Ernst and others.<br/><br/>Graphic Work of Arp:<br/><br/>102. 7 Arpaden. 7 prints in-folio Hannover,<br/>Merzverlag [1923].<br/><br/>Lithographs issued as Merz nry “Arp<br/>Mappe, Zweite mappe des Merzverlages”<br/>in 30 numbered copies. Illustrations also<br/>published, in miniature, in G nr3:48<br/>June 1924.<br/><br/>141<br/>
103. xi configurations: 11 gravures origi-<br/>nales. (bibl 142).<br/><br/>Woodcuts representing work from 1919-<br/>42. Of an edition of 200, there were 20<br/>issued in box with reproduction of an<br/>original woodblock, 40 numbered copies<br/>with original woodcut, and 160 trade<br/>copies.<br/><br/>104. 10 origin. [4]p plus prints in folio. Zu-<br/>rich, Allianz-Verlag, 1942.<br/><br/>Edition of 100 folios, containing one<br/>signed print by each of ten artists, in-<br/>cluding Arp, Bill, Domela, and others.<br/>Text by Arp (extracts from “Art con-<br/>cret’’), and others.<br/><br/>105. 23 gravures de Arp, Calder, Chirico,<br/>Erni (etc.) précédées d’un texte de Ana-<br/>tole Jakovski. îil Paris, G. Orobitz et cie.,<br/>1935-<br/><br/>Includes one original by Arp. “Cet<br/>album . . . constitue l’éclition de luxe<br/>de l’ouvrage d’Anatole Jakovski 24<br/>essais.”<br/><br/>106. arp, jean. Le Siège de l’air. Paris,<br/>Vrille, 1946.<br/><br/>“90 exemplaires sur velin . . . con-<br/>tenant une gravure de Arp et deux<br/>épreuves sur chine et sur japon et un<br/>papier déchiré original ... 70 ex-<br/>emplaires sur velin . . . contenant la<br/>gravure de l’auteur.” For trade edition<br/>of 900 copies, see bibl 19.<br/><br/>107. breton, andre. Le surréalisme en 1947,<br/>Paris, Pierre à Feu, Maeght, éditeur,<br/><br/>mr<br/><br/>De luxe edition, numbered and signed,<br/>included 2 original woodcuts by Arp.<br/>See bibl 146 for contents note.<br/><br/>107a. Abstrakt + Konkret no6:[io] 1945.<br/>Original woodcut, also cover.<br/><br/>108. Cabaret Voltaire. Édité par Hugo Ball.<br/>i9l6-<br/><br/>No. 1-10 of edition de luxe issued with<br/>original woodcut by Arp, in hand-<br/>colored and signed series of 50 numbered<br/>copies. Also cover design by Arp. For<br/>contents note see bibl 150.<br/><br/>109. Dada. Zurich, Paris, 1917—[19].<br/><br/>N0.2, Dec 1919, issued with signed wood-<br/>cut in edition de luxe; no.9, Dec 1918,<br/>issued in numbered copies with an<br/>original Arp print; nos.4-9, May 19 1919,<br/>issued 98 numbered de luxe copies con-<br/><br/>taining an original woodcut. Reproduc-<br/>tions of woodcuts in nos.1,2,9,4,9.<br/><br/>110. Dada Augrandair. Paris, 1921.<br/><br/>Two woodcuts by Arp. For details see<br/>bibl 196.<br/><br/>111. La Révolution Surréaliste. 2no6:25 Mar<br/>1 1926.<br/><br/>Original woodcut by Arp.<br/>ma. XXe Siècle. no4: [following P39] Christ-<br/>mas 1938.<br/><br/>Original engraving.<br/><br/>112. Wolfsberg, Kunstsalon, Zurich. Aus-<br/>stellungskatalog “Die neue Kunst.” 1918.<br/>Two original woodcuts by Arp.<br/><br/>Illustration by Arp:<br/><br/>112a. arp, jean. Le Siège de Pair. See bibl 106.<br/><br/>113. ARP, JEAN & HUIDOBRO, VINCENTE. Très<br/>novelas ejamplares. See bibl 15.<br/><br/>114. BHAGAVAD-GiTA. Le chant du bienheu-<br/>reux, édition d’art orné par Hans Arp.<br/>12Ü St. Armand (Cher), Édition de la<br/>Librairie de l’art indépendant, 1914?<br/>“C’est le premier livre illustré par Arp<br/>et les dessins sont encore figuratifs”<br/>(Hagenbach).<br/><br/>115. der blaue Reiter. Herausgegeber: Kan-<br/>dinski, Franz Marc. p6g,74,i03,i05<br/>München; R. Piper & Co. Verlag, 1912.<br/>Initials, and reproduction.<br/><br/>116. brzekowski, Jan. Kilométrage de la pein-<br/>ture contemporaine 1908-1930. Paris,<br/>Librairie Fischbacher, 1931.<br/><br/>Cover consists of two drawings by Arp.<br/><br/>117. brzekowski, Jan. Nuits végétales, avec un<br/>papier déchiré et interprêté par Arp.<br/>Paris, Editions G.L.M., 1938.<br/><br/>Edition of 220, including 20 de luxe<br/>numbered copies.<br/><br/>118. brzekowski, jan. W. drugiej osobie. gil<br/>1933-<br/><br/>Drawings, including cover design.<br/><br/>lig. BRZEKOWSKI, JAN^GRENKAMP—KORNFELD.<br/><br/>Pri l’moderna arto. Budapest, Literature<br/>mon do, 1913.<br/><br/>Cover by Arp.<br/><br/>120. BUCHER, JEANNE, GALERIE, PARIS. [Carte<br/><br/>d’invitation]. May 1939.<br/><br/>“Couverture: 7 dessins de Arp.”<br/><br/>121. huelsenbeck, richard. Phantastische<br/>Gebete. Verse. Mit 7 Holzschnitten von<br/>Arp. Zurich, Collection Dada, 1916.<br/><br/>142<br/>
122. HUELSENBECK, Richard. Schaleben, scha-<br/>labai, schalamerzomai. Verse. Mit 4<br/>Zeichnungen von H. Arp. Zurich, Col-<br/>lection Dada, 1916.<br/><br/>123. hugnet, Georges. Les chevaliers d’indus-<br/>trie. 5Ü L’Usage de la Parole 1003:37-8<br/>Arp 1940.<br/><br/>Drawings by Arp.<br/><br/>124. hugnet, georges. La Sphère de sable.<br/>Illustrations de Jean Arp. 23p incl il<br/>Paris, Aux depens de Robert-J. Godet,<br/>1943. (Collection “Pour mes amis.” II).<br/>Edition of 199 copies, including 3 on<br/>China and 20 on Lafuma paper “sous<br/>couverture-relief, composé par Arp, et<br/>auxquels on a ajouté une suite des illus-<br/>trations sur vélin.” Some poems pre-<br/>viously published under same title in<br/>Giration July 1939, and in La Conquête<br/>du Monde par l’Image P28-9 Paris, La<br/>Main à Plume, 1942.<br/><br/>125. JOLAS, EUGENE. Mots déluges. Paris, Edi-<br/>tions Laporte, 1933.<br/><br/>125a. MESENS, E.-L.-T. Hans Arp. îil Variétés<br/>ino8:422 D 15 1928.<br/><br/>126. moderner bund. Zweite Ausstellung,<br/>Kunsthaus Zürich 1912,1. Heft. [Zürich,<br/>1912].<br/><br/>“Es sind dies wohl die ersten Buchillus-<br/>trationen und der erste veröffentlichte<br/>Holzschnitt von Arp’’ (Hagenbach). 50<br/>numbered copies in an edition of 200.<br/>Includes woodcut, 6 initials and vignettes<br/>by Arp.<br/><br/>127. peret, benjamin. Le Passager du trans-<br/>atlantique. 4Ü Paris, Collection Dada,<br/>Au Sans Pareil, 1921?<br/><br/>Edition of 50 copies, 3 on China paper,<br/>with 4 drawings.<br/><br/>128. TANNER, GALERIE, ZURICH. Moderne<br/><br/>Wandteppiche, Stickereien, Malereien,<br/>Zeichnungen. 1915.<br/><br/>Cover by Arp.<br/><br/>129. Tzara, Tristan. De nos oiseaux; poèmes.<br/>Dessins par Arp. Paris, Editions Kra,<br/>1923-<br/><br/>De luxe edition of 20 signed copies,<br/>printed in Weimar. 10 on Japan, 10 on<br/>Holland paper.<br/><br/>130. Tzara, Tristan. Cinéma calendrier du<br/>coeur abstrait. Maisons. Bois par Arp.<br/>19Ü Paris, Collection Dada, Au Sans Pa-<br/>reil, 1920.<br/><br/>130 copies, “achevé d’imprimer en juin<br/>1920 par V. Holten.” Cuts destroyed.<br/>Prints accompanying the Cinéma calen-<br/>drier also published in Dada noj'.io<br/>Dec 1918.<br/><br/>131. tzara, tristan. Vingt-cinq poèmes. H.<br/>Arp: dix gravures sur bois. [5o]p incl îoil<br/>Zurich, Collection Dada, 1918.<br/><br/>Printed by J. Heuberger. Issued in a<br/>regular, numbered, and Holland paper<br/>edition.<br/><br/>132. tzara, tristan. Vingt-cinq-et-un poèmes;<br/>dessins de Hans Arp. 63P incl 12 plates<br/>Paris, Editions de la revue Fontaine,<br/>1946 (Collection L’Âge d’or).<br/><br/>Edition of 750. “Les vingt-cinq poèmes<br/>ont été publiés pour la première fois<br/>en 1918 collection dada Zurich avec des<br/>bois de Hans Arp. Le dernier poème du<br/>présent recueil date de 1917 et inédit<br/>...” The drawings, however, are new.<br/><br/>133. violette NoziERES. iil Bruxelles, Edi-<br/>tions Nicolas Flamel (Paris, José Corti,<br/>dépositaire), 1933.<br/><br/>Text by Breton, Char, etc. Illustrations<br/>by Arp, Dali, Tanguy and others.<br/><br/>134. WOLFSBERG, KUNSTSALON, ZURICH. Produk-<br/>tion Paris. 1930.<br/><br/>Cover by Arp.<br/><br/>Note: The illustrative work of Arp is<br/>also represented by contributions to<br/>Jeune Europe Sept 1935, Liriien 1937<br/>(cover), MA (Aktivista Folyrat) Mar 15<br/>1922 (incl cover), Noi (Rome) noi 1917,<br/>Plastique no4 1939, Red (Prague) 1928,<br/>Die Schammade (Cologne) Feb 1920,<br/>Sirius (Zurich) 1915-16, Der Sturm no<br/>154-5,158-9,180-1,182-3 1913, Transition<br/>no2i (covers) Mar 1932, Variétés June 1<br/>1929, Der Zeltweg (Zurich) 1919.<br/><br/>Articles on Arp:<br/><br/>135. ABSTRACTION-CRÉATION, ART NON-FIGURA-<br/>TIF. Noi-5 1932-36.<br/><br/>Arp a founder and represented on edi-<br/>torial committee.<br/><br/>135a. ABSTRAKT -|- KONKRET no6 1945.<br/><br/>Issue edited by Jean Arp and Max Bill.<br/>Special number of the Galerie des Eaux<br/>Vives, Zurich, for Sophie Taeuber-Arp<br/>memorial exhibition, with contributions<br/>by Arp: poems (bibl 72), graphie work<br/><br/>143<br/>
(bibl io’]a), essay (bibl 149a). Biographi-<br/>cal résumé.<br/><br/>136. Aragon, louis. La peinture au défi.<br/>Paris, Galerie Goemans, 1930.<br/>“Exposition de collages: Arp, Braque,<br/>Dali, Duchamp, Ernst, Gris, Miro,<br/>Magritte, Man Ray, Picabia, Picasso,<br/>Tanguy. . . mars 1990.”<br/><br/>ALLENDY, GALERIE, PARIS. See bibl 85.<br/><br/>137. ART OF THIS CENTURY, GALLERY, NEW<br/>York. Arp, February 1944 [4]p 1944.<br/>Catalog of exhibition listing 26 works,<br/>with note by Max Ernst.<br/><br/>ART OF THIS CENTURY, GALLERY, NEW<br/><br/>York. See also Guggenheim (bibl 174).<br/><br/>138. ball, Hugo. Die Flucht aus der Zeit.<br/>P77.79.85.90-95.98.122,151,153,157,167,169<br/>München, Verlag Duncker & Humblot,<br/>1927.<br/><br/>New edition published by Verlag Josef<br/>Stocker, Luzern, 1946.<br/><br/>139. baron, jacques. Arp 6il Cahiers de Bel-<br/>gique ino6:22i-4 July 1928.<br/><br/>140. basel. kunsthalle. Konkrete Kunst, lil<br/>pi 1-12,58,61 1944.<br/><br/>Catalog of exhibition held Mar 18-Apr<br/>16 1944, including statement by Jean Arp<br/>“Art concret,” pn-12. Brief biography;<br/>list of 20 ivorlis by Arp.<br/><br/>141. Bazin, germain. Arp [notice biogra-<br/>phique et bibliographique]. L’Amour de<br/>l’Art 15003:342 Mar 1934.<br/><br/>Also published in: Huyghe, René, ed.<br/>Histoire de l’art contemporain: la pein-<br/>ture. p342 Paris, Alcan, 1935.<br/><br/>142. bill, max. Arp: 11 configurations, 11<br/>gravures originales de Jean Arp, publiées<br/>par Max Bill, avec un texte monogra-<br/>phique de Gabrielle Bufïet-Picabia et<br/>une introduction de Max Bill, gp plus 10<br/>plates Zurich, Allianz Verlag, 1945.<br/><br/>142a. bill, max. Hans Arp. îil Literatur und<br/>Kunst 15^724:5 Sept 26 1947.<br/><br/>143. bill, max. Von der abstrakten zur kon-<br/>kreten Kunst: eine Einführung in Prob-<br/>leme der zeitgenössischen Kunst. Amphi-<br/>oxus 2003:5-8 1946.<br/><br/>144. bille, ejler. Hans Arp. 6il Nyt Tidsskrift<br/>for Kunstindustri 1009:159-61 Sept 1937.<br/><br/>144a. bille, ejler. Hans Arp; udtaleser af<br/>Hans Arp. 7Ü (por) P169-75 ln his: Pi-<br/>casso surréalisme, abstrakt kunst. Ko-<br/>benhavn, Forlaget Helios, 1945.<br/><br/>144b. bjerke-petersen, viLH. International nu-<br/>tidskunst: konstruktivisme, neo-plasti-<br/>cisme, abstrakt kunst, surrealisme, lil p4,<br/>6,14,19 Oslo, 193?<br/><br/>Exhibition “for Kunstnerforbundet i<br/>Oslo,” held Sept. 16-Oct. 2, arranged by<br/>Bjerke-Petersen, Hans Arp, and Taeu-<br/>ber-Arp. List of 6 works, brief biography<br/>and bibliography.<br/><br/>145. breton, andré. Hans Arp p226-8 In his:<br/>Anthologie de l’humour noir. Paris, Édi-<br/>tions du Sagittaire, 1940.<br/><br/>Also published by Éditions G.L.M., 1937.<br/><br/>146. breton, andré. Le surréalisme en 1947.<br/>P69-70 Paris, Pierre à Feu, Maeght, édi-<br/>teur, 1947.<br/><br/>“Exposition internationale du surréa-<br/>lisme, présentée par André Breton et<br/>Marcel Duchamp.” Includes catalog of<br/>exhibition, listing 1 work by Arp. Also<br/>issued in numbered, and numbered and<br/>signed edition with 2 woodcuts by Arp.<br/>“Le monde du souvenir et du rêve.” P69-<br/>70, by Jean Arp, is an essay on Sophie<br/>Taeuber-Arp (See bibl 93).<br/><br/>147. breton, andré. Le surréalisme et la pein-<br/>ture 6il P69-72 Paris, Gallimard, 1928.<br/>breton, andré. See also bibl 32,37,196.<br/><br/>147a. bruguière, p. g. Arp. 5Ü Cahiers d’Art 22:<br/>267-71 1947.<br/><br/>148. bryen, Camille. Arp et le langage. Fon-<br/>taine 8no6o May 1947.<br/><br/>On “Le Siège de l’air.”<br/><br/>149. brzekowski, jan. Hans Arp. 2p plus îopl<br/>Lôdf, Collection “a.r.” 1936.<br/><br/>149a. BUFFET-piCABiA, gabrielle. Jean Arp. Ab-<br/>strakt -}- Konkret no6:7-g 1945.<br/><br/>Also published in bibl 142.<br/><br/>150. cabaret voltaire. Recueil littéraire et<br/>artistique. Edité par Hugo Bail. pi3,i5,<br/>29,32 3il(por) Zurich[Buchdruckerei Jul.<br/>Heuberger] 1916.<br/><br/>Cover by Arp. Includes portrait of Arp<br/>by Modigliani, two illustrations, and<br/>catalog of the Cabaret Voltaire exhibi-<br/>tion with 3 works by Arp. See also bibl<br/>108.<br/><br/>151. croxleÿ, Hubert. Hans Arp. gil Cahiers<br/>d’Art 3005-6:229-30 1928.<br/><br/>152. croxleÿ, Hubert. Quelques considera-<br/>tions sur le problème plastique tel qu’il<br/>se pose pour Hans Arp. il Centaure 3:<br/>36-8 1928.<br/><br/>144<br/>
153- couRTHioN, pierre. Look out for sculp-<br/>ture. 6il XXe Siècle 2noi:[25-g] 1939.<br/>Theoretical essay with selected illustra-<br/>tions, including Arp.<br/><br/>dada. N01-5. 1917—[19] See bibl 109.<br/><br/>154. dada almanach. Im Auftrag des Zen-<br/>tralamts der Deutschen Dada-Bewegung,<br/>herausgegeben von Richard Huelsen-<br/>beck, mit Bildern. 160p Berlin, Erich<br/>Reiss Verlag, 1920.<br/><br/>See bibl y8, 202.<br/><br/>155. DADA AUSSTELLUNG. Dada-Vorfrühling:<br/>Gemälde, Skulpturen, Zeichnungen,<br/>Fluidoskeptrik, Vulgärdilettantismus. 4p<br/>[1920]<br/><br/>Catalog of exhibition listing 4 works by<br/>Arp; extract from “Die Schwalbenhode.”<br/><br/>156. DADA INTIROL AUGRANDAIR DER SÄNGER-<br/>KRIEG. Tarrenz B. Imst 16 septembre<br/>1886-1921. 2il 4p [Paris, Au Sans Pareil,<br/>1921].<br/><br/>Title partly inverted to read: Der Sän-<br/>gerkrieg Intirol [i.e. Dada Au Grand Air<br/>— Der Sängerkrieg in Tirol]. Includes<br/>“s’Fatagagalied” (bibl y cf), “Déclaration”<br/>(bibl 41), “Die Schwalbenhode” (bibl y8)<br/>and extract from “Einzahl, Mehrzahl,<br/>Rübezahl” (bibl 44).<br/><br/>157. DADAISTEN GEGEN WEIMAR. [2]p [Cologne,<br/><br/>1919]-<br/><br/>Printed announcement: “Oberdada als<br/>Präsident des Erdballs,” Feb 6 1919.<br/>Signed: “Der dadaistische Zentralrat der<br/>Weltrevolution . . . Baader, Haus-<br/><br/>mann, Tzara, Grosz, Janco, Arp, Hülsen-<br/>beck, Jung, Ernst, Meyer.”<br/><br/>debrunner, Hugo. Wir entdecken Kan-<br/>dinsky. 1947. See bibl 97.<br/><br/>158. DOESBURG, THEO VAN. Notices SUT l’Au-<br/>bette à Strasbourg, lil De Stijl 0087-9:<br/>7-8, 11-14 1928.<br/><br/>“Aubette-nummer sérié XV.” Comment<br/>on “le tableau mural du Caveau-Dan-<br/>cing” by Hans Arp, including press no-<br/>tices on the décor.<br/><br/>159. DROUIN, RENÉ, GALERIE, PARIS. Art Concret<br/><br/>lil p[i,9,n] 1945-<br/><br/>Catalog of exhibition held June 13-July<br/>13, including Arp, Delaunay, Domela,<br/>etc. Extract from “Art concret” (bibl 20),<br/>list of 3 works and collections.<br/><br/>DROUIN, RENÉ, GALERIE, PARIS. Magnelli.<br/><br/>See bibl 23.<br/><br/>160. Einstein, carl. L’enfance néolithique, gil<br/>Documents 2008:35-43 1930.<br/><br/>161. einstein, carl. Die Kunst des 20. Jahr-<br/>hunderts. 2 Aull, p 128-9,624-7,649 Ber-<br/>lin, Propyläen Verlag, 1928 (Propyläen<br/>Kunstgeschichte. 16).<br/><br/>162. ELUARD, PAUL. Arp. P132 ln his: Capitale<br/>de la douleur. Paris, Librairie Galli-<br/>mard, Éditions de la Nouvelle Revue<br/>Française, 1926.<br/><br/>From “Nouveaux poèmes.” Translated<br/>in Contemporary Poetry and Prose no2."<br/>20 June 1936.<br/><br/>163. ERDMANN-CZAPSKI, VERONIKA. Hans Arp<br/>“Pyramidenrock”; zur Entwicklungs-<br/>psychologie des Dadaismus. Das Kunst-<br/>blatt 10:218-21 June 1926.<br/><br/>164. ernst, max. Arp. Littérature 30019:10-<br/>12 May 1921.<br/><br/>ernst, max. Histoire naturelle. Paris,<br/>1926. See bibl 58.<br/><br/>ernst, max. See also bibl 79, 137.<br/><br/>165. fernandez, jusTiNO. Prometeo, ensayo so-<br/>bre pintura contemporânea. P32-3 Mex-<br/>ico, D.F., Editorial Porrua, 1945.<br/><br/>166. flake, otto. Ja und Nein: Roman.<br/>P76-9.81,111-16,123-4,145-7,163-4.176-8,<br/>238-41 Berlin, S. Fischer Verlag, 1920.<br/>FRAENGER, WILHELM. See bibl 44.<br/><br/>167. GALLATIN, ALBERT EUGENE. Museum of<br/>living art, A. E. Gallatin collection. 5Ü<br/>(por) 1940.<br/><br/>Critical note by George L. K. Morris,<br/>p[23]; brief comments in prefatory essay<br/>by Jean Hélion, p[i4]; quotation from<br/>Arp, p[ao]; photo of Arp taken by Gal-<br/>latin in 1934 (rear plate). Lists 10 works<br/>in the collection.<br/><br/>168. gheerbrandt, alain. Jean Arp ou la ré-<br/>alité. La Gazette des Lettres 30039 June<br/>1947-<br/><br/>On “Le Siège de l’air.”<br/><br/>gheerbrandt, alain. Creux comme un<br/><br/>oeuf. See bibl 13.<br/><br/>fi6g. GiEDioN-WELCKER, Carola. Contemporary<br/>sculptors: IV, Jean Arp. i5il(por) Hori-<br/>zon 1411082:232-9 Oct 1946.<br/><br/>A survey of Arp’s artistic development,<br/>including his dada period.<br/><br/>170. GiEDioN-WELCKER, Carola. Die Funktion<br/>der Sprache in der heutigen Dichtung.<br/>Transition 0022:93,95 1933.<br/><br/>145<br/>
iyi. GiEDioN-WELCKER, Carola. Hans Arp. il<br/>Das Kunstblatt 14:372-5 Dec 1930.<br/><br/>172. giedion-welcker, Carola. Jean Arp. lil<br/>p 165-78 In her: Poètes à l’écart; An-<br/>thologie der Abseitigen. Bern-Bümpliz,<br/>Verlag Benteli, 1946.<br/><br/>Poems by Arp dated 1904-45, with bi-<br/>ography and bibliography.<br/><br/>173. giedion-welcker, Carola. Modern plas-<br/>tic art: elements of reality, volume and<br/>disintegration. 6il pi 1-12,86,92,96 Zu-<br/>rich, H. Girsberger, 1937.<br/><br/>Includes quotation from diary (1951)-,<br/>biographical appendix, pi52; illustra-<br/>tions, p8y,89,91-5,97. Also published as:<br/>Moderne Plastik: Elemente der Wirlich-<br/>keit, Masse und Auflockerung (1957).<br/><br/>174. Guggenheim, Peggy, ed. Art of this cen-<br/>tury: objects, drawings, photographs,<br/>paintings, sculpture, collages, 1910 to<br/>1942. 2il p29-3i,ioi New York, Art of<br/>this century, 1942.<br/><br/>Catalog of permanent collection of the<br/>gallery, listing 5 works by Arp. Bio-<br/>graphical data, pioi. Essay by Arp “Ab-<br/>stract art, concrete art,” P29-31. English<br/>text of poem “L’Usage de la parole,”<br/>pioi.<br/><br/>175. Hildebrandt, Hans. Die Kunst des 19. und<br/>20. Jahrhunderts. p281,284,424-5. Pots-<br/>dam, Alcad. Verlagsgesellschaft Athe-<br/>naion [0924, postscript 1931].<br/><br/>176. hugnet, georges. L’Esprit dada dans la<br/>peinture. 6il Cahiers d’Art 71101-2:57,60,<br/>62,64; 006-7:282,284-5; 008-10:358-64<br/>1932; 9noi-4:109-14 1934.<br/><br/>177. huelsenbeck, richard. Die Arbeiten von<br/>Hans Arp. Dada 003:7 Dec 1918.<br/><br/>English translation by author in Mu-<br/>seum of Modern Art Library.<br/><br/>178. huelsenbeck, richard. Dada siegt; eine<br/>Bilanz des Dadaismus. P5-6, 10-11, 13-<br/>i6, 18-20, 22, 24-5 Berlin, Malik-Verlag,<br/>1920.<br/><br/>178a. JAKOVSKI, Anatole. Arp, Calder, Hélion,<br/>Mirô, Pevsner, Seligmann. Six essais. p5~<br/>10 2il Paris, Chez Jacques Povolozsky,<br/>n.d.<br/><br/>“Plaquette composée par Hans Arp.”<br/><br/>179. jene, edgar. Hans Arp. Der Plan 2noq,<br/>291-2 1947.<br/><br/>146<br/><br/>180. leiris, michel. Exposition Hans Arp<br/>(Galerie Goemans). 2il Documents ino6:<br/>340-2 Nov 1929.<br/><br/>181. löpez Torres, Domingo. Hans Arp. 3Ü<br/>Gaceta de Arte 30024:1 Mar 1934.<br/><br/>182. moderner bund. Zweite Ausstellung,<br/>Kunsthaus, Zurich, 1912. 7Ü [Zurich,<br/>1912].<br/><br/>“Erstes Heft des Modernen Bundes,”<br/>single leaves with original graphic work,<br/>or mounted reproductions. Initials, vi-<br/>gnettes, prints by Arp. Exhibitors in-<br/>clude Amiet, Arp, Delaunay, Gimmi,<br/>Kandinsky, Klee, Liithy, Marc and<br/>others. See note bibl. 126.<br/><br/>183. moeschlin, Walter j. Hans Arp. il Der<br/>Plan 2004:290-1 1947.<br/><br/>On the exhibition at Galerie Feigel, Ba-<br/>sel.<br/><br/>184. Moholy-Nagy, LÂSLÔ. Vision in motion.<br/>P313-15 et passim Chicago, Paul Theo-<br/>bald, 1947.<br/><br/>Includes translations from the “Pyramid<br/>frock” (bibl id) and “The Skeleton of the<br/>day” (bibl 49).<br/><br/>185. Montaigne galerie, paris. Salon dada,<br/><br/>exposition internationale. p2,12-13.<br/><br/>1922.<br/><br/>Catalog de luxe of exhibition held June<br/>6-50 listing 5 works with French trans-<br/>lation of extract from “Die Wolken-<br/>pumpe” (bibl 19).<br/><br/>186. morris, george l. k. Hans Arp. 3Ü Parti-<br/>san Review 4002:32 Jan 1937.<br/><br/>187. new York, museum of modern art. Fan-<br/>tastic art, dada, surrealism. Edited by<br/>Alfred H. Barr, Jr., essays by Georges<br/>Hugnet. 3 ed. îoil(icol) pi6-i8,226 et<br/>passim New York, The Museum of mod-<br/>ern art, distributed by Simon and Schus-<br/>ter, i947(ci936).<br/><br/>Revision of catalog originally prepared<br/>for an exhibition of the same title held<br/>Dec 1936-Jan 1957. The essay by Hugnet<br/>“Dada” pi5-54 is a summary of the se-<br/>ries originally published in Cahiers d’Art<br/>(bibl 125a). Design on title-page and<br/>cover by Arp.<br/><br/>188. plastique. No 1-5 1937-39.<br/><br/>“Composé par S. H. Taeuber Arp, avec<br/>la collaboration de A. E. Gallatin,<br/>G. L. K. Morris et H. Arp.”<br/>
189. RIBEMONT-DESSAIGNES, GEORGES. Dada<br/>painting or the oil-eye. 4Ü The Little<br/>Review 9004:11 Autumn and Winter<br/>1923-1924.<br/><br/>190. Richter, Hans. [Arp] il(por) Gnrß^g<br/>June 1924.<br/><br/>191. Schwitters, kurt. An Arp. Merz nr4:i<br/>July 1923.<br/><br/>192. schiess, Hans. Hans Arp. 2il Abstraction<br/><br/>— Création, Art Non-Figuratif noi:2~3<br/>1932- '<br/><br/>Additional illustrations in no2,no^.<br/><br/>193. Schmidt, Georg, ed. Sophie Taeuber-Arp,<br/>1889-1943. Basel, Holbein Verlag, 1948.<br/>Essay by Jean Arp, “Sophie Taeuber-<br/>Arp,” P23-7.<br/><br/>194. soby, James thrall. After Picasso. 2Ü<br/>pgo-i et passim Hartford, E. V. Mitch-<br/>ell; New York, Dodd Mead, 1935.<br/><br/>195. soergel, albert. Dichtung und Dichter<br/>der Zeit. 2:623,634 Leipzig, R. Voigt-<br/>länders Verlag, 1925.<br/><br/>195a. spiller, jürg. Hans Arp. Abstrakt -j-<br/>Konkret 009-10:13-18 1945.<br/><br/>196. SURRÉALISTE, GALERIE, PARIS. Arp 4Ü [l2]p<br/><br/>1927.<br/><br/>Catalog of exhibition held Nov 21-Dec 9<br/>listing 46 works, with foreword by André<br/>Breton.<br/><br/>197. TANNER, GALERIE, ZURICH. Moderne<br/>Wandteppiche, Stickereien, Malereien,<br/>Zeichnungen. 1915.<br/><br/>Cover by Arp. Includes statement and<br/>preface by Arp (bibl 42).<br/><br/>198. tériade, e. Documentation sur la jeune<br/>peinture, IV. — La réaction littéraire. 8il<br/>Cahiers d’Art 5002:72,74,80 1930.<br/><br/>199. torres-garcia, joaquin. Hans Arp. P538-<br/><br/>41 In his: Universalismo constructive.<br/>Buenos Aires, Editorial Poseidon, 1944.<br/>Text dated 1936.<br/><br/>200. TZARA, TRISTAN. Arp. Les Feuilles Libres<br/>no27:37-40,44-56,56-9 1927-8.<br/><br/>201. TZARA, TRISTAN. Arp. Merz nr6:49 1923.<br/><br/>202. Tzara, tristan. Chronique Zurichoise<br/>1915_1919- pio-29 In Dada Almanach<br/>(bibl 154).<br/><br/>203. Tzara, tristan. (Monsieur Aa l’antiphi-<br/>losophe:) Arp. Littérature 30019:9 My<br/>1921.<br/><br/>204. Tzara, tristan. Note 2 sur l’art: H. Arp.<br/>Dada no2:2 Dec 1917.<br/><br/>205. Tzara, tristan. Le papier collé, ou le<br/>proverbe en peinture. 2il Cahiers d’Art<br/>6no2:6i~4 1931.<br/><br/>206. Tzara, tristan. Les poésies de Arp. Dada<br/>no4~5 (édition allemande):[20] May 15<br/><br/>1919-<br/><br/>Introduction to first publication of ex-<br/>tracts from “Die Wolkenpumpe.”<br/><br/>207. Tzara, tristan. Printemps, à H. Arp.<br/>Dada no2:i6 Dec 1917.<br/><br/>Poem.<br/><br/>Tzara, tristan. See also bibl 65.<br/><br/>208. VERTIGRAL. Edité par Eugène Jolas. No.<br/>1 July 1932.<br/><br/>“Comité de rédaction: Jean Arp, Vin-<br/>cent Huidobro, Georges Pelorson.” State-<br/>ment by Arp, pn6 (bibl 56).<br/><br/>209. Walter, Karl, ed. Zwischen Rhein und<br/>Mosel; Elsässische und lothringische<br/>Dichtung der Gegenwart. P221-5, 302<br/>Strassburg, Heitz-Verlag, 1933.<br/><br/>Extracts from “Die gestiefelten Sterne”<br/>and biographical notice.<br/><br/>210. wiLENSKi, reginald howard. Modern<br/>French painters p26i,2Ö3,267,294 New<br/>York, Reynal & Hitchcock [1940].<br/>
This is the sixth volume in the series<br/>“The Documents of Modern Art.”<br/><br/>The text of the book is set in n-on-14 point<br/>Linotype Baskerville with the display<br/>in Futura, and is printed on Warren’s Oldstyle<br/>paper. The halftone engravings (except for<br/>the original woodcuts furnished by the artist)<br/>were made by Carlton Engraving Company<br/>of Worcester, Mass., and have been printed on<br/>Crocker Burbank’s Art Mat. The composition,<br/>printing and binding have been done by<br/>E. L. Hildreth & Company, Brattleboro, Vt.<br/><br/>Cover and typography by Paul Rand<br/><br/>In some instances the reader will note the<br/>use of all lower case letters. This is not the<br/>designer’s whim but merely follows the<br/>author’s original manuscript.<br/>
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Documents of Modern Art (Director: Robert Motherwell)<br/><br/>d.m.a. 1. The Cubist Painters (Aesthetic Meditations), by Guillaume Apollinaire. Edited by<br/>Robert Motherwell. Translated from the French by Lionel Abel. 36 pp., 22 small ill., 1944.<br/>Out of print. (Revised edition with additional material and corrections in preparation.)<br/>d.m.a. 2. Plastic Art and Pure Plastic Art, by Piet Mondrian. Edited by Robert Motherwell.<br/><br/>Introduction by Harry Holtzman. 63 pp., 2 color plates, 24 ill., 2nd printing, 1947. $2.25.<br/>d.m.a. 3. The New Vision, by Lazio Moholy-Nagy, followed by his autobiographical note, Abstract<br/>of an Artist. Edited by Robert Motherwell. Introduction and Obituary by Walter Gro-<br/>pius. Translation completely revised with Moholy-Nagy's approval from the original transla-<br/>tion from the German by Daphne Hoffman. 92 pp., 84 ill., 4th revised edition, 1947. $3.00.<br/>d.m.a. 4. Kindergarten Chats, by Louis H. Sullivan, with Other Writings. Edited by Isabella Athey.<br/>251 pp., 18 ill., 1947. $4.50.<br/><br/>d.m.a. 5. Concerning the Spiritual in Art and Painting in Particular, by Wassily Kan<br/>dinsky. With Kandinsky's Prose Poems. Edited by Robert Motherwell. Prefaces by<br/>Mme. Kandinsky, Julia and Lyonel Feininger, and a contribution by S. W. Hayter. Translated<br/>from the German by Sir Michael Sadleir, with revisions by F. Golffing, M. Harrison, and F.<br/>Ostertag; prose poems translated by Ralph Manheim. Edition authorized by Mme. Kan-<br/>dinsky, with new footnotes and additions by Kandinsky. 93 pp., 10 ill., 1947. $2.25.<br/>d.ni.a. 6. On My Way, by Jean (Hans) Arp. Essays and Poems, 1912-1947 in French, German, English.<br/><br/>Edited by Robert Motherwell. Translated from the French and German by Ralph Manheim,<br/>with 2 woodcufs especially done by the artist for this publication and printed in color, con-<br/>tribution by Carola Giedlon-Welcker. Bibliography by B. Karpel. 148 pp., 2 original<br/>woodcuts, 48 ill., 1948. $4.50.<br/><br/>d.m.a. 7. Beyond Painting, by Max Ernst, with other texts by A. Breton, N. Colas, P. Éluard, G. Ribemont-<br/>Dessaignes, T. Tzara and others. Edited by Robert Motherwell. Bibliography by B. Karpel.<br/>220 pp., 140 ill., 1948. $6.00.<br/><br/>d.m.a. 8. Dada: An Anthology, texts by Arp, H. Ball, A. Breton, G. Buffet-Picabia, A. Craven, P. Éluard,<br/>G. Hugnet, R. Hulsenbeck, G. Ribemont-Dessaignes, H. Richter, K. Schwitters, T. Tzara and<br/>others. Edited by Robert Motherwell. Translated from the French and German by Ralph<br/>Manheim and others. (First publication in English of most of the material.) ,1949.<br/><br/>In active preparation: Cubism, by Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler. First translation into English.<br/><br/>the Cubist Painters (Aesthetic Meditations), by Guillaume Apollinaire.<br/><br/>Revised edition. (See No. 1 above.)<br/><br/>The Modern Arts in Review. A critical Bibliography compiled and annotated<br/>by Bernard Karpel, Librarian, The Museum of Modern Art, New York.<br/><br/>Problems of Contemporary Art<br/><br/>No general editor, being a catch-all for texts relating to the immediate tensions of the arts,<br/>p.c.a. 1. Form and Sense, by Wolfgang Paalen. 1945. Out-of-print,<br/>p.c.a. 2. The Grass Roots of Art, by Herbert Read. 92 pp., 19 ill., 1947. $1.75.<br/>p.c.a. 3. The Way Beyond ‘Art’: The Work of Herbert Bayer, by Alexander Dorner. Intro-<br/>duction by John Dewey. 244 pp., 154 ill., 7 color plates, 194*7. $6.00 (Typography by<br/>Herbert Bayer).<br/><br/>p.c.a. 4. Possibilities: 1. An occasional Review, edited by John Cage (music), Pierre Chareau (archi-<br/>tecture), Robert Motherwell (art), and Harold Rosenberg (writing). Winter 1947-48. Con-<br/>tributions by Abel, Arp, Baziotes, Caffi, Calvo, Paul Goodman, Haieff, Hayter, Hulbeck,<br/>Miro, Motherwell, Niemeyer, Poe, J. Pollock, H. Rosenberg, Rothko, David Smith, Virgil<br/>Thomson, Varese, Ben Weber: 112 pp., 49 illus., $2.25 (Typography by the editors),<br/>p.c.a. 5. Paintings, Sculptures, Reflections, by Georges Vantongerloo. Preface by Max Bill. 113<br/>pp., 50 ill., 2 color plates, 1948. $3.00.<br/><br/>In active preparation: Possibilities: 2. (See No. 4 above.)<br/><br/>Large 8vo. wrappers. Covers and typography (unless otherwise noted) by Paul Rand.<br/><br/>Wittenborn, Schultz, Inc., Publishers. 38 East 57th St., New York 22, New York.<br/>