George-Albert Aurier
George-Albert Aurier (born the May 5th 1865 with Chateauroux, Indre - died the October 5th 1892 with Paris) was a writer, poet, Critic painter and art French of second half of the 19th century.
Biography
Wire of a notary of Chateauroux, George-Albert Aurier came to Paris in 1883 in order to undertake studies of right before impassioning himself for the Art and the Littérature. He published of sound living a collection of Poésie S cursed work and a novel Vieux . His/her mother gathered her writings in posthumous Œuvres (1893), prefaced by Remy de Gourmont. The work contains a choice of poems, a mixture of proses, some acts of theater, drawings, outlines, a novel ( Ailleurs ), as well as the principal articles of art critic which made the reputation of the Berrichon young person.
Art Critic and theorist of art, it was one of the founders of the “ Mercure de France ”, in which it published many articles on painters then little known: Paul Gauguin, Van Gogh, Puvis de Chavannes, Gustave Moreau, Monet, Renoir, Berthe Morisot, etc It wrote the first an article on Vincent Van Gogh. Figure impossible to circumvent of the first symbolism, Aurier indeed revealed with the public the impressionists, and more particularly Van Gogh and Gauguin. It was according to Hector Talvart “one of the most outstanding writers of the declining school , and one of the promoters of symbolism in painting and literature. ”
After the publication of its article on Van Gogh in January 1890, the artist answered him in a long letter. This exchange between the two men was the subject of an academic work detailed in 1986.
In its IIe Delivers masks , (1898), Remy de Gourmont insists on the importance of work of art critic of Aurier: “We had since the new era only two art critics, Aurier and Fénéon: one died, the other is keep silent. What a damage! ”
It gave besides a definition of the symbolism in an article of the Mercure de France of 1891, the work of art will have to be firstly a ideist, since his single ideal will be the expression of the idea, secondly Symbolist since it will express this idea in form, thirdly synthetic since it will write its forms, his signs according to a mode of comprehension general, fourthly subjective since the object will never be considered there as an object but as a sign perceived by the subject, fifthly the work of art will have to be decorative.
After a voyage to Marseilles, George-Albert Aurier died of the Typhoid fever on his return to Paris at the 27 years age, the October 5th 1892. His/her friends accompanied the coffin until the Gare by Orleans (become today the Musée of Orsay ) from where it was brought back by train until Chateauroux to be buried in the family vault.
Posterity
In 1961, the Collège of Pataphysique devoted number 15 of its Dossiers to George-Albert Aurier who “with various recoveries felt the interference of the Symbolisme and of what one did not name yet the Pataphysique”. It comprises many texts of the author and studies carried out by members of the College.
Selection of articles of art critic
- Isolated: Vincent van Gogh , Mercure de France, January 1890, p. 24-29 (in pdf on Gallica).
- Symbolism in painting: Paul Gauguin , Mercure de France, March 1891, p. 155-165 (in pdf on Gallica).
- the Symbolists , Re-examined encyclopedic 2, April 1st 1892, p. 474-486.