Astruc (Zacharie) - Lot 6

Astruc (Zacharie) Ɵ Les 14 Stations du Salon - 1859 - followed by a Récit douloureux. Preface by George Sand. Poulet-Malassis et de Broise, Paris, 1859. Cover illustrated with a drawing by the author. First edition (17.9 x 11.6 cm). Late 19th century binding: Brown half-chagrin with corners, gilt fillets, ribbed spine, untrimmed, cover and spine preserved. Inspired by La Légende des siècles, a long and subtle letter to Victor Hugo, then in exile, by the critic, poet, painter, musician and sculptor who was an early supporter of Manet and the future Impressionists, here the author of the famous formula that in art "one must cross matter". Copy of Victor Hugo, then exiled in Hauteville House, with this letter in verse: "à Victor Hugo. Livre, qu'un vent t'effeuille Where lives the great captive: The still puny shrub Gives its young leaf. Zacharie Astruc". This dedication is of particular interest in relation to Hugo's exile. Indeed, it is a pastiche of Hugo's dedication to the first series of La Légende des Siècles, published in the same year, 1859: "Livre, qu'un vent t'emporte To France where I was born! The uprooted tree Gives its dead leaf. V. H. " By turns writer, painter, sculptor, composer and critic, Zacharie Astruc (1833-1907) was one of the most complete artists of the century. A great supporter of Delacroix, then Courbet, he was also Manet's first supporter as early as 1865 (he is also the one whose portrait Manet painted in Fantin-Latour's Un atelier aux Batignolles, 1870). In his text evoking the Salon as a Way of the Cross, Astruc also highlights a little-known phenomenon at the time, that of perceptual associations between poetry, music and painting, later known as synesthesia (of which Kandinsky in painting and Scriabin in music were famous examples). This is also where we find the famous phrase "in Art, you have to go through matter". In the present copy, with its allusive poetic dedication, Astruc addresses his exiled elder with finesse and respect. Provenance: Victor Hugo.