Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes

Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes (1884-1974), writer, Poète, Dramaturge and painter French, is around 1915, with Marcel Duchamp and Francis Picabia, one of the precursors in Paris of the spirit that in 1916 with Zurich Tristan Tzara names " Hobby-horse ". From 1920 it takes part in all the activities of the movement and one will say of him that it had then written " the only theater hobby-horse, the only music dada" , pre-empting in these two fields the later developments of the topics of the absurdity and the recourse to the random one. Joining the Surrealism then, it breaks since 1929 with André Breton.

Biography

Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes is born on June 19th, 1884 with Montpellier where his/her father teaches obstetrics at the University before settling in a villa of Neuilly, gynecologist society man music lover, practitioner several instruments and exposing to academic Salon of the French Artists. Originating in the Puy Haute-Loire where the family manufactures laces, its great-grandfather, Jean-Philibert Dessaignes, Oratorien défroqué at the time of the Révolution, contribute to the foundation of the college of Vendôme, sign the Philosophie and physical sciences, receives a Grand Prix of the Institute for its experiments on phosphorescence. It is his/her father, Alban Dessaigne, which adds to its family name that of his/her mother beauceronne. After two years of public school, Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes follows the particular lessons of the teacher and " the Caracaca" abbot;. Around sixteen years it turns to philosophy, plays of the flute, composes of the symphonies, quartets and operas then, thinking of becoming painter, attends the workshop of Jean-Paul Laurens with the Académie Julian and the École of the Art schools.

In 1909 Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes binds with the sculptor Raymond Duchamp-Villon, his two brothers painters Jacques Villon and Marcel Duchamp, whom it finds each week, to the War, with Puteaux, just like Jean Metzinger, Albert Gleizes, Fernand Leger. By Duchamp, it enters soon in friendly relations with Francis Picabia. Up to that point influenced by the Impressionism and the Nabis, it ceases into 1913 painting " concluded that there were no reason to paint of such or such manner rather than of such autre" , he in " entrusts; Already jadis" (p. 50). Picabia then Duchamp left in the United States, Ribemont-Dessaignes, mobilized in 1915, is versed in the " Intelligence services in Familles" at the Military academy. Whereas Dada prepares in Switzerland, it composes its first poems " dadaïstes before the lettre" and of the plays, in particular " The Emperor of Chine" , written on the cards of the Ministry for the War, which announce Ionesco and Beckett.

From 1919, Ribemont-Dessaignes starts again to paint, composing of works " mécanistes" or mécanomorphes, often with the back of its preceding fabrics, the such " Large Musicien" old André Breton collection, who is exposed in 1920 with a foreword of Tzara. In the review " 391" founded in 1917 by Picabia in Barcelona then transplanted with New York, Zurich and Paris, and from which it becomes one moment the manager, it publishes poems and several lampoons, in particular in November 1919 against the artists of the " Living room of Automne" where it exposes with Picabia, and in March 1920 against Gleizes and the " section dorée".

Arrived at Paris at the end of 1919 Tzara was the inventor; in the presence of Jean Arp, name of " Dada" February 8th, 1916 with Zurich. It had already accommodated their writings in his review as from 1918 when it carries out there a junction with the group formed by Marcel Duchamp, Picabia and Ribemont-Dessaignes and the group of the review " Littérature" , founded in March 1919, which join together André Breton and Philippe Soupault, already pre-surrealist in their use of the automatic writing, Louis Aragon and their friends.

From 1920, " golden age of Dada" , Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes takes an active part in all the great public demonstrations of the movement, on the occasion of which it shows his paintings, reads texts and writing of short plays, in particular the " Canary muet" , played by Breton, provided with a long thermometer, and Soupault, disguised as a negro and holding a cage with bird. In March and May 1920 interpretation with the piano of two of its works, made up using " a kind of caster of pocket, with a dial on which notes were registered, of semitone in semitone, as a numéros" , the " No the chicorey frisée" then " The Interlope" Navel; , and its execution of the " Dance Frontière" contribute to the scandals and unchain the insults of the press. It forms simultaneously part of the authors gathered in l'" Dada" anthology;.

In April 1921 Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes is still the guide of the visit of a dozen members of Saint-Julien-the-Poor Hobby-horse to , reading in front of column or sculpture an article randomly of a large Larousse dictionary. In May he writes the indictment of the " Committal for trial of Maurice Bars " by the group, under the presidency of Breton, for " crime against the safety of the esprit". With all the dadaïstes he collaborates in " Proverbe" , founded by Eluard, with " Hobby-horse with large the air" , realized after a stay of Tzara, Arp, Eluard, max Ernst and Breton, during the summer, with the the Tyrol and, in November, with " Hobby-horse, its birth, its life, its mort" , texts gathered with Antwerp in number 16 of the review " That ira" by Clement Pansaers. While it leaves Paris, practitioner culture and breeding with Montfort-l' Amaury, it writes its first novel, " The Ostrich with the eyes clos" while Hobby-horse, after some starts, starts, with the rupture of Picabia and the distance of Duchamp, with being victim of its dissensions.

The failure in February 1922 of the " Congress for the determination of the directives of the defense of the Moderne" Spirit; or " Congress of Paris" wanted by André Breton but what challenges Eluard, Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes, Erik Satie and Tzara, involving forty-five personalities to withdraw their confidence at the Steering Committee, the end of the movement marks symbolically. " The death of Hobby-horse was not a beautiful death, like one says. It is the death which arrives at everyone. A death anyhow " , Ribemont-Dessaignes in " will note; Already jadis" (p. 113). While Eluard, Tzara and Ribemont-Dessaignes launch in April the review " The Heart with Barbe" , Breton takes with Soupault the direction of a new series of " Littérature" who as of September passes violently to the offensive against Dada.

Surrealism officially born in October 1924 with the publication of the first " Manifeste" of Breton, Ribemont-Dessaignes, which took its distances with the new movement, has in 1925 to sign its " Letter ouverte" in answer in an article of Paul Claudel. He collaborates simultaneously near Magritte and Mesens in the single number of the review " Œsophage" then in 1926 with " Marie". Living then with Neauphle-the-Castle, it takes part however only intermittently in the meetings of the surrealist ones. There remains then using food work while collaborating in the Intransigent, with the Figaro, while writing for " The Film complet" fictionalized equivalents of the last film productions and while working anonymously with " arranger" memories of Sarah Bernhardt. It ties then friendly relations with the creators, in 1928, of the " Big game " , Roger Gilbert-Lecomte, Rene Daumal, Roger Vailland, the painter Joseph Sima. When the group is condemned in 1929 by Breton, Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes signs, with Vitrac, Georges Limbour, Michel Leiris, Jacques Prévert, Raymond Queneau, Robert Desnos, Georges Bataille, the lampoon " A cadavre" , particularly abusive, which expresses their rupture with " Inquisiteur".

In 1930 Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes directs the review " Bifur "(eight numbers) then Paris into 1931 before holding as from 1934 a hotel with his wife returns to live in Villar d' Arène, in the Dauphiné. Because of the proximity of the border it leaves it shortly after the entry in war of Italy of Mussolini for Chassiers, close to Largentière in Ardèche. Several of its close relations reached of fatal diseases, it crosses many difficulties then. Jean Ballard publishes in Marseilles its poems in the " Books of Sud" , Rene Daumel transmits some to Max-pol. Fouchet which directs " Fontaine" with Algiers.

About 1943 Ribemont-Dessaignes returns in the Hautes-Alpes then, after the Release, regains Paris. Remarié, it settles in 1946 not far from Juan-the-Pines to cultivate eyelets or anemones there. Pourvivre it writes forewords with traditional literary works (Stendhal, 1954; Tolstoï; Diderot, 1956,1962; Cyrano of Bergerac, 1957; Voltaire, 1963; Rimbaud, 1965) and for the painters (Directs, Picasso, Dubuffet Utrillo or Sima). It also carries out emissions with the radio, in particular of the discussions with Chagall, Matisse, Henri Sauguet and Tzara. Continuing its literary work, poetic and romantic in a more realistic vein, it starts again to draw landscapes in 1944 in Villar d' Arène then, in a tightened graphics, visions of trees and stones with Saint-Jeannet (the Alpes-Maritimes), close to Vence where it settles as from 1955. It undergoes a serious operation in 1963 and the " Mercure de France " publish some of the poems that its nights in the corridors of hospital inspire to him. While it holds a chronicle devoted to the discs in " The literary Gazette of Lausanne " , the Chave gallery presents to Vence in 1965 a great exposure of its plastic works. Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes died in Saint-Jeannet on July 9th 1974.

André Breton was to recognize in her " Entretiens" that " Tzara, Picabia and Ribemont-Dessaignes" had been " only truths 'dadas'" (Franck Jotterand, p. 40).

Sources:

Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes, Already formerly or Of the movement hobby-horse to abstract space , 1958.
Franck Jotterand, Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes , 1966.

Quotations

" What is it beautiful? What is it ugly? What is it large, strong, weak? What is it Carpentier, Renan, Foch? What is it me? Do not know, do not know, know pas."

Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes (1920), in Already formerly or Of the movement hobby-horse to abstract space , 1958 (p. 84).

" There was Dada such as one did it without the knowledge. And Hobby-horse such as it appears in the history. For me it arrived at point named because I had included/understood, following the successive revolutions of the XXè century, that it was necessary me to make clean slate of all the values and any absolute, and to play with the antireality of the things whose art or thought was nourished: thus is born really poetry. When Dada appeared, I had already written my Emperor of Chine" , that one incorporated in Dada. But I followed this one accurately until the day when it did not find any more its nourriture."

Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes, in " Le Monde " , supplement with the n° 6884, Paris, March 1st, 1967.

Works

Novels

the Ostrich with the closed eyes , Without-Similar, Paris, 1924.
ARIANE , Editions of Sagittarius, Paris, 1925; Editions J. - M. Place, 1977.
Yes and Not or the Cage in the bird , Prague, 1926 (French new).
Clara of the days, Books of the South, Marseilles, 1927.
the Bar of the following day , Emile-Paul, Paris, 1927; Gallimard, Paris, 1972.
Celestial Ugolin , Kra, Paris, 1928.
human Borders , Editions of the Crossroads, Paris, 1929: EditionsPlasma, 1979.
Adolescence , Emile-Paul, Paris, 1930.
Elisa , Grasset, Paris, 1931.
Mr Jean or absolute Love , Grasset, Paris, 1934 (Price of the Two Nest eggs).
Smeterling , Corrêa, Paris, 1945.
the Time of the catastrophes , Calmann-Levy, Paris, 1947.

Poetry

Shades , Rene Debresse, Paris, 1942.
Alarm , Letters, Geneva, 1944.
Ecce Homo , Gallimard, Paris, 1945.
the Night, the Hunger , lithographies of Directs, Adrien Maeght, Paris, 1960.
Blood, the Sap, Water and the Tears , J. Gontal-Darly, 1968.
Cryptogrammes (20 lithographies and 20 poems), Pierre Chave, Vence, 1968.
the Ballade of the soldier , 34 lithographies of max Ernst, Pierre Chave, Vence, 1972.
the Vegetable kingdom , joinings of max Papart and photographs of Andre Villers, Editions of the University of Ottawa, Ottawa, 1972.
Hobby-horse I , Free field, 1974.
Hobby-horse II , Free field, 1978.
Anthology of the new French poetry , Kra, Paris, 1928.
Anthology of the poets of N.R.F. , Gallimard, Paris, 1960.

Theater

the Emperor of China followed the Dumb Canary , with Without-Similar, Paris, 1921.
the Torturer of Peru , with Without-Similar, Paris, 1928.
Faust , Paillart Printing works, 1931.
Theater of China '', '' the Dumb Canary '' and '' the Torturer of Peru '', Gallimard, Paris, 1966.

Art schools

Man Ray , Gallimard, Paris, 1924.
Joan Miro (with Jacques Prévert), Maeght, Paris, 1956.

Test

Already formerly or Of the movement hobby-horse to abstract space , collection new Letters, Julliard, Paris, 1958 (301 p.); collection 10/18, 1973.

Deliver for children

Tico-Tico , on photographs of Ylla, Gallimard, Paris, 1952.

Translations

the Troubadours , Egloff, Geneva, 1946.
complete Poetries of Nietzsche , bilingual edition, Editions of the Threshold, Paris, 1948. ; Edition Plasma, 1982; Edition Free field, 1984.
Sonnets of Michel-Angel , bilingual edition, French Club of the Book, Paris, 1961.

Other works

Ledantu the Headlight (1923)
Wills (1955)
mystical Tetanus (1972)
Letter with Benjamin Fondane (1964)
Mr Morphée public empoisonnor (1966)
Correspondence (1971)
Arthur Rimbaud (1971)
the horrible revelation… only the (1973)
Hollow in full sky (1977)
Last nine haï kaï (1977)
Poems and found chronicles (1982)
My expensive small eternal (1992)
Joseph Sima (2000)
Divine the bouchère (collection of news, 2006)

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