Stéphane Mallarmé, autographed stones. Mallarmé made the habit of placing verse on ordinary objects such as stones, Easter Eggs, fans, envelopes, or decorative jugs. Such gestures reveal the poet’s interest in the ways that poetry can circulate in every day life. [Whereabouts unknown.]
Edouard Manet, “Once Upon a Midnight Dreary (Under the Lamp),” from Le Corbeau, 1875. Nineteenth-century literary texts often celebrated the “authentic” graphic marks of the artist-printmaker—the laborer in black and white—and aligned this figure with the lone writer. This proved to be seductive ground for Mallarmé and his collaborator Edouard Manet. In this illustration for Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven”, Mallarmé himself becomes part of this mythic construction: Manet portrays him in the role of Poe’s tortured protagonist at his desk. [Transfer Lithograph, 27.5 x 37 cm. Inv. 994.2.1. Musée Départemental Stéphane Mallarmé, Vulaines-Sur-Seine. Photo credit: Yvan Bourhis, DAPMD-Conseil général de Seine et Marne, 2008.]
Félicien Rops, La Grande Lyre, ex-libris from Les Poésies de Stéphane Mallarmé, Paris, La Revue indépendante, 1887. Issued in an edition of forty copies (with an additional seven hors commerce), this publication included a commissioned ex libris titled La Grande Lyre (The Great Lyre) by the Belgian artist Félicien Rops. Priced at one hundred francs, Les Poésies was four times the cost of Le Corbeau, five times that of L’Après-midi d’un faune (see Image 10), and nearly twenty times the cost of other publications issued by the same independent periodical press, the avant-garde journal La Revue indépendante. [Photoengraving with drypoint, 21.8 x 15 cm. Inv. 993.28.1-9. Musée Départemental Stéphane Mallarmé, Vulaines-sur Seine. Photo credit: Yvan Bourhis, DAPMD-Conseil général de Seine et Marne, 2008.]
Stéphane Mallarmé, “Las de l’amer repos,” from Les Poésies de Stéphane Mallarmé, Paris, La Revue indépendante, 1887. The most striking feature of Les Poésies de Stéphane Mallarmé was the extraordinary lengths taken to replicate the poet’s original manuscript. The completed work resembled a series of bound manuscripts with luxurious blank pages between the poems. Mallarmé’s carefully handwritten text was reproduced with photolithography. To ensure the limited edition status of this publication, the plates were slashed after printing the requisite number of copies. [Photolithographic reproduction. Inv. 993.28.1-9. Musée Départemental Stéphane Mallarmé, Vulaines-sur Seine. Photo credit: Yvan Bourhis, DAPMD-Conseil général de Seine et Marne, 2008.]
Odilon Redon, “Femme de profil vers la gauche,” trial print intended for “Un Coup de dés.” Mallarmé’s dear friend Odilon Redon was asked to contribute to the deluxe edition of Un coup de dés, which was well under way at the time of Mallarmé’s death and for which Redon completed four trial lithographs, three of which survive today including this evocative image. Significantly, Redon and his critics were careful to not use the label “illustrations” for the images he created for literary texts, rather they were hailed as “transpositions,” “interpretations,” “visions,” or “parallel correlations.” Indeed, his images for Un coup de dés were to appear hors texte so as not to interfere with the poem’s visually evocative typography and layout. [Lithograph, 30 x 24 cm. Inv. 987-1.1. Musée Départemental Stéphane Mallarmé, Vulaines-sur Seine. Photo credit: Yvan Bourhis, DAPMD-Conseil général de Seine et Marne, 2008.]
Stéphane Mallarmé, “Un Coup de dés.” Mallarmé’s most experimental work was first published in the London-based journal Cosmopolis. Mallarmé wrote that the journal “behaved gallantly…but I could only present it to them half way, and even that represented for them such a risk!” He was in the end, asked to submit a statement explaining the poem’s unusual layout. [Cosmopolis May 1897, p. 424.]
Un Coup de Dés jamais n’abolira le Hasard par Stéphane Mallarmé, Paris, Change errant/d’atelier, 1980. To fully consider the intended effect of Un coup de dés, it’s useful to compare the 1897 Cosmopolis version (see Image 6) to the posthumous edition scrupulously published according to the extant proofs corrected by Mallarmé under the supervision of Mitsou Ronat and Tibor Papp in 1980, including the use of the Didot typeface shown here.2
Albert, fashion plate from La Dernière Mode. Mallarmé directed this fashion magazine for several months assuming multiple pseudonyms to compose columns on fashion, travel, decorating, cooking, travel and poetry. This experience taught him valuable lessons about the newspaper as a consciously designed medium and as dynamic platform encouraging creative reading practices. [Lithograph highlighted with watercolor by M. Huguet. Paris, 1874. Private Collection, Paris.]
Henry van de Velde, bookbinding design for Siegfried Bing’s La culture artistique en Amérique, 1896. Showcased in Siegfried Bing’s influential 1896 exhibition “Le Livre moderne” in Paris, this work as well as others by Belgian artists revealed how innovative Belgian book design was compared to contemporary French book design. In particular, Van de Velde investigated the power of abstract design and line to “whip” and arouse the “epidermis of an indolent public.” Such ideas influenced Mallarmé’s own ideas about page design and he ended up publishing several books with the avant-garde Belgian publisher Edmond Deman.
Edouard Manet, Faun frontispiece on chine volante and “Nymphs” illustration from L’Après-midi d’un faune, Paris, Alphonse Derenne, 1876. Issued in limited edition of 195 copies and hand-signed by artist and poet. Émile Zola described this work as a “literary gem, marvelously clad.” The delicate silken cords and Manet’s elegantly restrained illustrations were inspired by japonisme. [Wood-engraving. Inv. 985-342.1. Musée Départemental Stéphane Mallarmé, Vulaines-sur Seine. Photo credit: Yvan Bourhis, DAPMD-Conseil général de Seine et Marne, 2008.]
Carlos Schwabe, illustration for the Comte de Clapier’s copy of Les Poésies de Stéphane Mallarmé, executed in 1893. There were only 47 copies of this book published in 1887. The Comte decided to commission a watercolor for each of the book’s fascicules thereby rendering his copy even more exclusive. [Watercolor. Private Collection, Paris.]
Lacquered Cabinet belonging to Mallarmé. Manufactured in Havana, this Japanese-inspired cabinet was originally located in Mallarmé’s apartment in Paris where he held his legendary Mardis. The poet stored some of his papers in this cabinet; the geometric configuration of drawers likely inspired his meditations on shuffling folio leaves in a piece of “lacquered furniture” in the manuscript of Le Livre. [Inv. 985-50.1. Musée Départemental Stéphane Mallarmé, Vulaines-sur Seine. Photo credit: Yvan Bourhis, DAPMD-Conseil général de Seine et Marne, 2008.]
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Anna Sigrídur Arnar
Minnesota State University Moorhead
1104 7th Ave. South
Moorhead MN 56563
218-477-4631