L'Ymagier. First Edition.
Paris: L'Ymagier, 9 rue de Varenne, 1894-1896. 2 vols. 278, 244pp with hors texte plates. Complete with 8 issues. Original symbolist paper covered boards with later half goatskin spine and corners. 20 x 26cm.
With 11 handcolored folding plates printed by Pellerin à Epinal (several with repaired tears); original lithographs and woodcuts by Whistler, Jarry, Bernard et al. Lacking the print by Rousseau. See complete list below.....
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Vol 1: 1894. 278 pp…..
N°1 : comprising a leaf bearing a title and a miniature by Filiger printed in mauve, a Head of a Martyr by R.G. (Rémy de Gourmont), a drawing by Émile Bernard printed in blue, forty old images and vignettes; on large folio Épinal folding images printed in colors (620 x 380 mm and 615 x 395 mm): Jesus sur la Croix…..
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- N°2 : with a woodcut in red by Armand Séguin (1869 – 1903) Les Bretonnes [ Breton women] , an original print by E. Forbes-Robertson (Adam and Eve), numerous woodcuts, of which two from Indochina printed on 2 ll. of folded China paper, lithograph “L’Annonciation” signed R.G. (Rémy de Gourmont) printed in black, an original lithograph by Alfred Jarry (Caesar-Antichrist), “Bedouin”, an unpublished drawing by Emile Bernard and two folding Épinal images: Le miroir du P”echeur des Pyramides (400 x 580 mm) and Bonne Bière de Mars (420 x 509 mm.
Lacking: an original lithograph by Douanier Rousseau (War) ….
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- N° 3 :. Numerous illustrations in text and hors texte, among them:, La Madeleine, after a woodcut printed in dark orange by Paul Gauguin, “The Bishop”, an original woodcut in dark green by Georges d'Espagnat, an original woodcut in black by Alice Feurgard, an original drawing printed in blue by Emile Bernard, an original drawing printed in dark green by Jossot, an original woodcut in bistre by M. Delcourt,; an Épinal folding image printed in colors , Saint Claude…..
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- N° 4 :. Numerous illustrations to text and hors texte, including: an original sketch cut onto mahogany wood. “Sainte Gertrude” by Alain Jans (Alfred Jarry),;a woodcut “La Peur” in black by Georges d'Espagnat, an original drawing printed in black by Roderie O'Conor,; an original drawing printed in blue by Émile Bernard, a folded woodcut (very pale, 455 x 198 mm), two folding Épinal images printed in colors : Saint Nicolas and Notre-Dame des Sept Douleurs…..
Volume II. Issues 5-8. 224 pages…..
- N°5 : . Numerous illustrations to text and hors texte, including: an unpublished original print and folding plate by Jean-Baptiste Auguste Clésinger
of Two Bulls printed in black (281 x 430 mm), an original unpublished lithograph by James Abbott McNeill Whistler on China paper between silk paper guards: “Girl With Bowl,” Stratis & Tedeschi, 118; Way, 82; Levy 121; first bearing a title, folding facsimile of a vernacular colored image entitled Le vrai portrait du Juif-Errant…[A true portrait of the Wandering Jew…] (485 x 304 mm), folded fragment of an enormous former engraving (368 x 305 mm). Printed by Lefevre-Corbinière….
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- N° 6 :. Numerous illustrations to text and hors texte, including a folding Épinal image in colors (Les 3 Chemins de l’Etnernité). ….
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- N° 7 : . Numerous illustrations to text and hors texte, including an original woodcut of Jesus on the cross with Crying Woman, by Émile Bernard printed in red on strong grey tinted paper; (previous page with clean tear) a folding Épinal image in colors showing St. Blaise et St. Guerinand and a color lithograph: L’Arche de Noé. (Noah’s Ark from the 12cth Century…..
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- N° 8 : . Numerous illustrations to text and hors texte, including: L’Annonciaiton by Emile Bernard; a color Epinal folding plate of Napoleon 1er; a vernacular image of a procession in colors in the form of a folding banner (280 x 475 mm; triangle),; an original woodcut“Les Pendus” by Georges D’Espagnat and a red woodcut: Santo Cristo , with Christ wearing a skirt…..
From the Van Gogh Museum:
At the fin de siècle, printmakers often turned to primitive art forms and popular visual culture for sources of inspiration.
In this vein, the French Symbolist writers Alfred Jarry and Remy de Gourmont founded L’Ymagier, an ambitious art review. Here, they presented the works of contemporary printmakers next to examples of medieval woodcuts and popular prints known as Épinal.
L’Ymagier’s interest in religious Épinal and medieval woodcuts was rooted in a fervent desire to achieve a more authentic form of modern art. For Jarry, archetypal Christian symbols, such as the Passion and the Virgin Mary, possessed universal meaning of continued importance to contemporary artists.
This interest in the past was shared by the artists of the School of Pont-Aven, who looked to the traditions and rituals of the Breton peasants for creative inspiration.
L’Ymagier helped to revive contemporary interest in the woodcut technique for artists like Edvard Munch and Emil Nolde.
Juliet Simpson:
Remy de Gourmont's and Alfred Jarry's journal, L’Ymagier, published in eight issues between October 1894 and January 1896. In attempting to create a 'book of symbols' structured explicitly around the image, notably the popular image, the L’Ymagier project develops the verbal-visual problematic exemplified by the Symbolist 'illustration'. It also raises some very fundamental questions about artistic homologies in general, which test Symbolist theories of synthesis to their limits. As I hope to show, Gourmont's and Jarry's appropriation of the popular image as the inspiration ror L’Ymagier becomes a strategy for destabilizing hierarchies or images and texts (including Symbolist ones), which has both radical aesthetic and political implications.
Bolliger, Dokumentations-Bibliothek Zur Kunst Des 20. Jahrhunderts, II, 243; VI, 829;
Library of Congress Control Number
41040620. Item #51-3873
Price: $10,000.00