Mise en scène du livre en noir et blanc : Les Épiphanies de Henri Pichette, mise en page de Pierre Faucheux (1948)

Abstract

Marie-Laure Jaubert de Beaujeu : The theatrality of a black and white book : Pierre Faucheux ’s page layout for the Epiphanies of Henri Pichette The question of the use of black and white has special implications in the field of book design. In 1948, Pierre Faucheux’s layout for the Epiphanies, a dramatic poem written a year before by Henri Pichette and published by K Editor, belongs to the tradition of visual poetry and proposes a theatrical book in which page design makes the most of typographic elements and the metaphoric power of the contrast between black and white. Considerations such as these are of particular importance in book design, given the key role played by this medium as a vehicle of the written word and the abstract exactitude of black an white. Their pertinence stems also from the construction of a space-time specific to reading -from the marks made by metal type to the screen used in the halftone blocks -which depends on the organization of the black and white elements and variations of typographical “colour”.