Jacques Cow

Jacques Cow , born with Lorient the September 7th 1896 and died in Nantes the January 6th 1919, is a French writer and painter. Regarded by André Breton as the initiator of the Surrealism, it left for any work only one series of letters and some drawings.

Biography

Exit of a family of Anglo-Irish origin, it shows as of 1913 literary talents. In Nantes, with the college Clemenceau, with the collaboration of his comrades Pierre Bisserié and Jean Bellemere, it makes appear a review having for title On the way bad troop , which knows only one single number. The tonality of the contents, qualified “subversive and pacifist one” - independence of mind, freedom of criticism and hatred of the middle-class men, conventions and army - are worth to him to be excluded from the establishment. In the same spirit four numbers of the Wild duck follow .

Mobilized in August 1914, envoy with the face, then wounded, it is repatriated in Nantes to be neat there. At the hospital of the street Marie-Anne of Boccage, to spend time, it paints postcards representing of the figures of mode accompanied by odd legends.

In January 1916, it becomes acquainted with André Breton and Theodore Fraenkel affected as house physicians. Breton is allured at once by the attitude of this “very elegant young man, to the russet-red hair”, which makes known to him Alfred Jarry, opposes to all the “desertion inside oneself” and obeys only one law, “the umour (without H)”. “When Jacques Vaché tightens you the hand is neither to say hello nor goodbye. ” In a radiophonic document, the mother of Jacques Cow, evoking the memory of her son, tells that Breton “never greeted”. As for Fraenkel, Vaché takes it for model in the news “ the Bloody symbol ” (character of Theodore Letzinski).

In May, Jacques Vaché, who usually speaks English, is returned to the face as interprets near the British troops. The contact with Breton begins again in October with a first letter: “I walk of ruins in villages my crystal monocle and a theory of worrying paintings -, I successively was a crowned literary man, a known pornographic draftsman and a painter scandalous cubist. ”

June 24th, 1917, during a permission, it attends the first of the part of Guillaume Apollinaire, the Udders of Tirésias , subtitle drama surrealist . The spectacle turns to the fiasco. Disguised as an English officer, revolver with the fist, he summons to put an end to the representation, which he found too artistic with his taste, under threat to use of its weapon against the public. Breton manages to calm it.

Letter of August 18th, 1917 with André Breton: “Art is a stupidity - Almost nothing is a stupidity - art must be a funny thing and a little overwhelming - it is very D'ailleurs - Art does not exist, undoubtedly - It is thus useless to sing some - however: one makes art - because it is like that and not differently - Well - what do you want to make there? ”

Letter of December 19th, 1918, the last - “I refer some to you to prepare the ways of this disappointing God, sniggerer a little, and terrible in any case. As it will be funny, you see, this true NEW SPIRIT breaks out”.

January 6th, 1919, Jacques Cow and one of his friends, Paul Bonnet, are found died in a hotel room in Nantes, probably victims of an overdose of opium. The “ Lettres of war ” reproduce two extracts of articles published in " The Telegram of the province of Ouest" and in " The Express train of Ouest" (January 7th and 9th). The victims indicated by their only initial are presented like " young scatterbrains without experiment of the drogue". Breton: " Cow, it was for sure Alcibiade. " (A " bright types of the dandysme" according to Charles Baudelaire).

Its influence on André Breton

In the month of August 1919, André Breton gathers in volume the Lettres of war and the foreword signs some.

Its life during, Breton will not cease recognizing the determining influence of Jacques Vaché: “It is in Jacques Vaché that I must more. Time that I passed with him to Nantes in 1916 appears almost magic me. I will never lose sight of the fact it, and though I still would have to bind me progressively meetings, I know that I will not belong to anybody with this abandonment. ” ( the scornful Confession )

He still testifies some with enthusiasm in 1952, at the time of the series of radiophonic talks which he grants to André Parinaud: “Art itself was not saved. We liked neither art nor the artists. He judged allowed to form the personal feeling using a blazing collision of rare words, to draw angles or squares Nets of feelings. For me, it was the most advanced mark of the dandyism. ”

André Breton: “Jacques Vaché is surrealist in me. ”

Works

Letters of war , foreword of André Breton, Editions of Thousand and One Nights, 1919
Solemn the , with Jean Vine shoot, texts and drawings new, Dilecta Editions, Paris, 2007
On the way, bad troop , newspaper of the college written by Jean Bellemère, Pierre Bissérié, Eugene Hublet and Jacques Cow, foreword of Gilles Lucas, editions the Red Dog

Bibliographical source

Bertrand Lacarelle Jacques Cow , Grasset, Paris, 2005

External bond

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