![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.isirdi.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/sapin.gif\")
\nConte de No\u00ebl<\/h3>\n
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\u00a0 <\/p>\n Once upon a time, in the middle of autumn, there was a painter who wanted to try lithography.<\/strong>\u2028<\/strong>\u00a0So he inquired with a lithographer, who agreed to receive him in his workshop to carry out his project.<\/p>\n The painter found a vacation property (in hibernation due to the off-season), located near the hamlet where the lithographer lived. It consisted of around forty nearly identical houses. The property manager offered the painter the opportunity to rent one of them.<\/p>\n It was a simple square house with all the basic amenities. A large garden enclosed by a hedge of wild shrubs surrounded the small building. On the afternoon of his arrival, as a kind of greeting, a robin appeared out of nowhere, jumped in front of him just two meters away, then turned several times, observing him with its sharp, swiveling head.<\/p>\n The painter was delighted to meet his first friend. The feeling was mutual, for the bird\u2014who was the only inhabitant of this deserted place\u2014was starting to feel bored. The cheeky little creature performed a few circus tricks on the ground for the touched painter, interspersed with sudden stillness. The painter understood the message: he would scatter his meal crumbs for the bird.<\/p>\n Then the robin flew a bit farther, landing on a farm gate, where it put on more antics and ever smaller, more spaced-out hops. The bird wanted to show the painter the way to the hamlet.<\/p>\n This gate indeed bordered a path leading to a church steeple rising proudly in the distance above a canopy of brown branches, like a great stone rooster.<\/p>\n The painter knew that the lithographer lived near a church. And the robin knew the lithographer.<\/p>\n After putting away his things in the house, the painter, having made sure to don his wool cap, left on foot, stepping through a small movable gate near a white marker.<\/p>\n He headed toward the hamlet to locate the lithographer\u2019s studio, with whom he had a meeting the next day.<\/p>\n He reached the church square and took a sloping street.<\/p>\n Carried away by his thoughts, the dreamy painter passed near a stone archway when suddenly, his cap was snatched by a rose stem hanging under the arch.<\/p>\n The bent stem gained powerful tension and, while holding the cap tightly between its thorns, catapulted it onto another branch above\u2014so high that retrieving it became a challenge.<\/p>\n \u201cBeware, strangers passing through!\u201d the vigilant rosebush seemed to say to the surprised painter. The painter smiled but secretly hoped the rosebush would become his friend.<\/p>\n He guessed, upon seeing a framed drawing of an ink roller and a quill pen displayed clearly on the sky-blue door, that this was the place\u2014under the arch, guarded by the fearsome rosebush: the lithographer\u2019s home.<\/p>\n He had to jump like a goat to recover the cap and ended up pricking his finger with a long green thorn!<\/p>\n On his way back, the painter counted his steps: 1,950 as he passed the white marker again. It was exactly the year of his birth! This place was full of surprises.<\/p>\n The painter had gone deaf with age; yet for him, silence didn\u2019t truly exist. He almost always heard a great rumbling noise that only he could perceive: the dull, nagging sound of the Earth rotating on its axis.<\/p>\n But only his wife and children knew this.<\/p>\n That\u2019s why the painter was almost always awake. Only poetry had the power to drown out this droning noise, which sometimes transformed into a kind of techno music, making it bearable enough to rest.<\/p>\n That\u2019s how he wrote poems at night, using a black felt pen without even looking. When he managed to make a few rhymes match, he was as joyful as a finch!<\/p>\n And so, from time to time, he managed to fall asleep and dream of his lost friends who once played guitar and harmonica before him.<\/p>\n He remembered their music: blues, folk, psychedelic, gypsy, classical, Stravinsky, Bart\u00f3k, marching bands, and troubadour songs.<\/p>\n In that square house, in the middle of a seemingly boundless garden, you didn\u2019t need to be deaf to hear the silence. Peace was so well settled there. It flowed through wide windows, clinging naturally to the trees and the sky. It wrote poems on the mute breath of the wind. The painter read them and found relief from the Earth\u2019s noise…<\/p>\n Then came the glow of sunset, the faint glimmer of ground-level lampposts lighting the paths toward empty homes, and the vibration of stars\u2014enough to fill his thoughts. And there he was, full of emotion, in a silence that stirred his memories of youth. He began to love this house like the one from his childhood, where everything had been designed for his happiness. Back then, the Earth rotated for him in a bath of oil!<\/p>\n \u201cPure poetry!\u201d<\/strong>\u00a0he said to himself.<\/p>\n That\u2019s why, when he spoke to his loved ones about this simple square house that looked like all the others, he called it:\u2028\u201cThe Poet\u2019s House.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n And his wife and children imagined him swimming in happiness.\u2028But he wouldn\u2019t tell the lithographer. They weren\u2019t real friends yet.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The painter had noticed: he was a worn-out man, yet strong as an ox and clever as a fox. He had built himself a workshop full of old machines. He used a system of pulleys and counterweights tied with simple strings. When the sun twisted through the sky and its rays became blinding on the far side of the studio, all he had to do was undo a loop, and by gravity, a curtain of fabric rolled down, gently filtering the light.<\/p>\n The lithographer had devised many other clever inventions: flat cases with adjustable slots for his tools; custom dust shelters for his leather or rubber rollers. He was both inventive and frugal. He needed electricity only to run a hairdryer over the \u201chair\u201d of the stones or to occasionally power the blades of a large fan.<\/p>\n He could move heavy slabs\u2014reminiscent of the stone tablets of the Ten Commandments\u2014alone, using simple machines inspired by antiquity!<\/p>\n The painter thought he resembled Aramis, one of the Four Musketeers (in his older days). He imagined a gleaming sword hidden behind the lopsided heavy door to the studio, perhaps wedged between wood and the cloth used for insulation.<\/p>\n A hand press, with a wooden wheel bolted by huge metal nuts\u2014resembling a ship\u2019s helm and nicknamed by lithographers as \u201cthe horned beast\u201d\u2014stood proudly in a corner.<\/p>\n Aramis welcomed the painter into this seemingly timeless workshop. The painter felt that he might well meet Toulouse-Lautrec, Soulages, or Picasso here. This sanctuary of stone, ink, and wire-suspended shelves, amidst a jumble of posters, prints, and all kinds of paper, would suit them perfectly.<\/p>\n And above all, the mythical “horned beast”<\/strong>, calm and composed, ready to devour the stone placed on its long oak jaw, was itself a magnet for artistic fervor\u2014sure to make any great poster artist swoon. No doubt, had they all met here, they\u2019d fight with broomsticks for the first stone prepared by the lithographer!<\/p>\n The painter and lithographer agreed to work together without overburdening the horned beast but with dedication. They “worked” six to seven hours a day. Some frown upon using the word “work”<\/strong>\u00a0for artistic endeavors.<\/p>\n “Artists don\u2019t work, they entertain themselves.”<\/strong><\/p>\n Still, lithography required discipline\u2014the technical terms, scientific processes, and chemistry filled several dictionaries!<\/p>\n So yes, they worked!<\/strong>\u2028<\/strong>\u00a0But that didn\u2019t stop poetry from being present.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Poetry<\/strong><\/p>\n It was the big day. The beginning.\u2028The painter tipped out the fruits he had brought in a wicker basket. He almost threw them onto thick wooden beams serving as a workbench, in front of a wide window overlooking the glowing valley.<\/p>\n Thus, four or five quinces, three persimmons, just as many pomegranates, and a bunch of grapes became his subject.<\/p>\n Our Aramis looked a bit surprised that the painter so carelessly dumped all this amidst tool pots and an empty jug\u2026<\/p>\n Between the subject and the painter was the stone\u2014offered, smooth, and silent, like a nude goddess, shy and trembling.<\/p>\n The painter bowed his head modestly toward her. He gazed into her wide, rectangular eye.<\/p>\n It was emotionally almost unbearable.<\/p>\n He could feel behind him, barely shielded by his straw-like hair and a drooping eyelid that blocked part of his vision, two round, pale, painful eyes\u2014impenetrable and cold as blades of ice.<\/p>\n They were the eyes of the lithographer.<\/p>\n The painter repeated to himself, as always before beginning a drawing:\u2028“My first gesture must be guided by Inspiration<\/em>.<\/strong><\/p>\n He envisioned the word, filled with mystery, as a grand white lady with every virtue.\u2028\u201cI must not fail her.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n So he waited for this grace while contemplating the slightly absurd mix of fruit and random objects.<\/p>\n He read the fruits, recalled their stories\u2014from buds on branches to their present forms, he had watched them grow. He didn\u2019t need a detailed analysis of their shapes. He knew them. He thought instead of bees, of heavy, dark bumblebees striped in bronze that once pollinated their flowers.<\/p>\n But that wasn\u2019t enough.<\/p>\n A kind of complicity<\/strong>\u00a0had to be born.\u2028Now.<\/strong><\/p>\n A complicity that resembles a friendship, a love. An understanding\u2026<\/strong>\u2028<\/strong>\u00a0The inert matter, the living matter, the soul of the ghosts that haunt the workshop, and the physical presence of the lithographer behind him\u2026 and who, despite everything, makes him a little uneasy\u2026\u2028Always, in the back of his mind, the hum of the Earth.\u2028Everything must become one, for the magic to happen. And sometimes, that\u2019s not enough. Then, rage, revolt, chance, or madness may help him save his creation from shipwreck.\u2028Like a solitary sailor, he clings to his ultimate hope: his lifebuoys.\u2028Just between us: all this suffering is the lot of figurative artists! Let him not complain! He could just throw splotches into the sky, catch them on a sheet of paper, what else could one say, take imprints of mud, piss toward the stars or what else? Do like Manzoni, shit in cans!\u2028Yes, people paid a fortune for that and it ended up in museums. What\u2019s the problem? There isn\u2019t one. Just beware of explosions!\u2028To tell the truth, he had thought about it too, back when he was younger. If only he\u2019d known you had to start by unlearning everything! But no\u2014no regrets. Not now.\u2028In any case, nature couldn\u2019t care less\u2014figurative art or not\u2014about all these efforts.\u2028As for Aramis, the lithographer, he has his own view of things. A moment ago, he said the following to the painter:\u2028\u2014 “Resemblances with nature matter little to me.”\u2028Like a great sword slash across the sky!\u2028The painter senses there\u2019s material for debate here. And this confession stands before him like a barrier that could very well break his momentum. He wonders whether Aramis is an ally or an enemy.\u2028The painter doesn\u2019t hold the key to this mystery.\u2028Which is quite annoying, really.\u2028\u2014 “How d\u2019you plan t\u2019do it?” Aramis, the lithographer, asks in a subsonic voice, skipping all the \u201ce\u201ds and slicing through the painter\u2019s inspiration like a sword. \u201cIt\u2019s too mixed up. We won\u2019t get there.\u201d\u2028This guy, the painter thinks for a moment, if he wanted to wreck the atmosphere, he wouldn\u2019t go about it any other way!\u2028He would\u2019ve preferred the voice of a Raimu or a Fernandel, swelling their words with thick spit like a butcher stuffs his blood sausages and andouillettes with blood and fat.\u2028\u2014 “With my ink and my brush,” replies the painter, in his Marseille accent, showing his weapons: brush and inkwell.\u2028\u2014 “A sketch on the stone with sanguine and this pencil is better,” says the lithographer again (showing him a stylus and a crumpled-looking ochre paper). \u201cThat way, you can start over if you mess up. You erase with water.\u201d\u2028That stylus is so fine, the painter fears he\u2019ll break it. And that paper doesn\u2019t inspire confidence either\u2026\u2028\u2014 “No, I prefer to go straight in with the brush.”\u2028The lithographer does not encourage him:\u2028\u2014 “You\u2019ll never pull it off!”\u2028But the painter begins to draw. In his heart and behind his temples, will the Earth’s hum finally stop?\u2028The thread of ink runs from his brush onto the warm, smooth stone, like the caress his wounded finger\u2014now starting to heal\u2014might give the fine skin of a young girl\u2019s face.\u2028The painter pretended not to hear.\u2028\u201cAfter all,\u201d he thinks, \u201cthe village bells don\u2019t worry about supersonic jets flying overhead!\u201d\u2028That\u2019s when two great princes of poetry, Verlaine and Rimbaud, emerged from a corner of the workshop. On velvet feet, they quietly came to settle behind the embers of his deaf ears.\u2028Each of them, while the painter was drawing, recited one of his favorite poems to him\u2014very calmly, each being very careful with his gestures.\u2028Then the hum of the Earth in the painter\u2019s head stopped.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Po\u00e8me 1 (by Paul Verlaine):<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n The sky above the roof\u2028So blue, so calm!\u2028A tree above the roof\u2028Waves its palm.<\/p>\n The bell, in the visible sky,\u2028Softly rings.\u2028A bird on the tree nearby\u2028Sings and sings.<\/p>\n My God, my God, life is there,\u2028Simple and quiet.\u2028This peaceful sound comes from the town\u2014\u2028A soft, slow riot.<\/p>\n \u2014What have you done, oh you\u2028Crying so often?\u2028Tell me, what have you done,\u2028With your youth?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Po\u00e8me 2 (by Arthur Rimbaud):<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n On blue summer evenings I won\u2019t speak, <\/p>\n <\/p>\n At the end of the last verse, the still life was done.<\/strong>\u2028<\/strong>\u00a0Aramis was floored.\u2028There was nothing left to do but fix the image to the stone and begin printing.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n FIN<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Postface<\/strong><\/p>\n J\u2019aimerais, comme mon grand fr\u00e8re, mourir en automne. C\u2019est la saison du deuil et celle des plus beaux accents de couleurs\u2009! <\/p>\n R\u00e9f : \u00ab\u2009Le ciel est par-dessus le toit\u2009\u00bb \u00ab\u2009Sensation\u2009\u00bb \u00a9G\u00e9rard Isirdi – Tous droits r\u00e9serv\u00e9s<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Conte de No\u00ebl G\u00e9rard Isirdi \u00a0Le peintre Once upon a time, in the middle of autumn, there was a painter who wanted to try lithography.\u2028\u00a0So he inquired with a lithographer, who agreed to receive him in his workshop to carry out his project. The painter found a vacation property (in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":57954,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sfsi_plus_gutenberg_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_show_text_before_share":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_type":"","sfsi_plus_gutenberg_icon_alignemt":"","sfsi_plus_gutenburg_max_per_row":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog-uk"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.isirdi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.isirdi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.isirdi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.isirdi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.isirdi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57968"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.isirdi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57968\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67343,"href":"https:\/\/www.isirdi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57968\/revisions\/67343"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.isirdi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.isirdi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.isirdi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.isirdi.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.isirdi.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/peintre.gif\")
Le peintre<\/strong><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.isirdi.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/12\/poesie.gif\")
<\/strong>The Lithographer<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nI\u2019ll go along the paths,
\nTickled by the wheat,
\nTreading the tender grass:
\nDreamy,
\nI\u2019ll feel its coolness
\nRise through my bare feet.
\nI\u2019ll let the wind
\nBathe my naked head.<\/p>\n
\nI won\u2019t think:
\nBut boundless love
\nWill rise in my soul,
\nAnd I\u2019ll wander far, very far,
\nLike a gypsy,
\n\u2014Through Nature\u2014happy
\nAs if with a woman.<\/p>\n
\nMalgr\u00e9 l\u2019immense peine, en plein projet lithographique, de perdre cette ann\u00e9e comme un morceau de moi-m\u00eame, cette saison m\u2019a procur\u00e9 son lot de surprises\u2009et j\u2019ai eu la joie en me rendant \u00e0 ses fun\u00e9railles de d\u00e9couvrir, en m\u00eame temps qu\u2019une partie de sa vie et l\u2019amour de sa famille, le beau pays lyonnais, avec ses vignes rougeoyantes qui d\u00e9gringolent vers la vall\u00e9e du Rh\u00f4ne et ses hautes et chatoyantes futaies\u2026
\nMais il fallait mener mon projet artistique jusqu\u2019au bout.
\nC\u2019est ainsi qu\u2019apr\u00e8s avoir charg\u00e9 le pr\u00e9cieux papier Hahnemuhle \u2013 soigneusement \u00e9querr\u00e9 et coup\u00e9 par Christine et avoir fait une razzia sur les derniers fruits du verger, y ajoutant une grappe de raisin que Christine \u2013 mon \u00e9ternelle muse \u2013 s\u2019en alla acheter tout expr\u00e8s pour moi au Panier du Moulin, c\u2019est une nouvelle fois avec ma Jeep que je pris le chemin de la lithographie.
\nQue voulez-vous, je suis arriv\u00e9 dans l\u2019une de ces r\u00e9gions si retir\u00e9es de l\u2019agitation des villes\u2009; dans un endroit si f\u00e9erique qu\u2019il me sembla que des contes pouvaient surgir de chaque recoin du paysage.
\nEt si j\u2019\u00e9crivais un conte, pour vous expliquer de r\u00eaveuse mani\u00e8re ma nouvelle aventure\u2026 Trempant mon pinceau dans l\u2019ombre du soir je me suis laiss\u00e9 prendre au jeu\u2026 \u00e9crire ce conte de No\u00ebl sp\u00e9cialement pour vous fut un immense plaisir. Merci \u00e0 tous pour votre soutien ind\u00e9fectible au fil des ann\u00e9es.<\/p>\n
\nPaul Verlaine, Sagesse (1881)<\/p>\n
\nMars 1870
\nArthur Rimbaud, Po\u00e9sies<\/p>\n