« Elle a la concision terrible du blanc et du noir ». Henri Focillon, l’eau-forte et les artistes visionnaires

Abstract

Pascal Schandel : Henri Focillon, etching and the visionary artists. In the profuse and complex work of Henri Focillon, the life of forms is not the only support of his conceptual effort. “Spiritual families” beyond the usual time frames and stylistic definitions are constantly in his mind. The family of visionary artists (Hugo, Goya, Meryon, Piranese, Rembrandt ...) particularly appealed to him. His reflexion leans on a rhetoric opposing shade and light, black and white, whose origin is to be found in 19th French poets and writers. Focillon was a scrupulous reader of Gautier and Baudelaire and he approved their assessment of Balzac. This one, compared to an etcher, is called a visionary by his contemporaries : Focillon transposes reality so as to offer a more accute vision of it, just as Meryon’s prints. Focillon borrows this idea from literary critics, translates it into the aesthetic field and explores its possibilities.