Le trompe-l'oeil dans l'oeuvre d'andre pieyre de mandiargues
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Abstract EN:
The literary work of andre pieyre de mandiargues' constantly returns to the themes of vision and illusion, a tendency which extends to his critical writing, where painting is examined from the perspective of simulation. In the same way that mandiargues fiction is traversed by a variety of references to paintings, the term trompe l'oeil is also a distinct element in the author's artistic vocabulary. Mandiargues' writing is thus informed by an explicit visual project, a project which discovers a principle of esthetic pleasure in illusion. Pictorial trompe l'oeil is generally defined as a representation designed to convey an illusion of the real via a painted simulacrum. Transposed into literature by paul valery, this term applies to realism, the stylistic and thematic program out of which emerged, according to roland barthes, the notion of the "reality effect" and the ambiguous relationship to the referential object it implies. In mandiargues' writing, this technique is first of all employed to construct a representation of the real, then to underpin the validity of its narration. The commonplace is an essential part of his descriptive passages, and mandiargues' writing technique works towards the establishment of a nomenclature. However, mandiargues uses this strategy to reveal the ambivalence of perspective and the instability of representation, whose principles, in mandiargues' case, are organized according to the laws of anamorphosis. Meaning is turned back on itself to reveal his writing's theatricality. This mise-en-scene of words also extends to language and its ethos. Such is the apparent message of marbre ou les mysteres d'italie, in which father athanase builds a museum of "unmasked" words, a project which articulates the promise of a writing ceaselessly driven towards its limit by eroticism, the logic of the symbol and the power of metaphor. In the end, mandiargues' trompe l'oeil reveals its hyperrealist affinities, since his model is always another representation. Mandiargues writes from within literature, and thus also from within his own work, which is a site of constant rewriting. And even while all of this is manifest in his writing, the logic of his approach vanishes to reveal the humor and the evident pleasure of the text which characterizes his work.
Abstract FR:
L'oeuvre d'andre pieyre de mandiargues renvoie constamment a la thematique de l'oeil et de l'illusion. Aussi, la peinture devient-elle le sujet de multiples textes critiques ou il l'interroge du point de vue des faux-semblants. De meme que des references diverses aux oeuvres picturales figurent dans la fiction mandiarguienne, le terme du trompe-l'oeil fait partie de l'imaginaire de l'auteur. Il y a donc chez mandiargues une motivation visuelle explicite, qui participe a l'elaboration de l'ecriture, motivation qui semble soutenue par un interet pour l'illusion comme principe de plaisir esthetique. Or, le trompe-l'oeil pictural se definit comme une representation ayant pour objectif de donner l'illusion du reel par un simulacre peint. Transpose dans la litterature par paul valery, ce terme s'applique au realisme dont l'objectif stylistique et thematique guidait la notion d'"effet de reel", selon roland barthes, c'est-a-dire un rapport ambigu a la reference. Dans le dispositif mandiarguien, il est d'abord question de cette technique qui met en place un enregistrement du reel, puis, la validite de sa narration. Le banal est de rigueur pour le contenu des descriptions et la technique de l'ecriture tend vers une nomenclature. Cependant, cette organisation denonce le changement de perspectives et l'instabilite de la representation, regie, chez mandiargues, par les lois anamorphotiques. Le sens se dedouble pour s'ouvrir sur une theatralite de l'ecriture. Des lors l'illusion concerne aussi le langage et son ethique. Tel semble le message de marbre ou les mysteres d'italie ou le pere athanase batit un musee des mots "demasques" et, a travers lui, la promesse d'une ecriture poussee sans cesse vers son extreme par le biais de l'erotisation, de la symbolique, d'une emprise de la metaphore. Enfin, ce trompe-l'oeil exhibe aussi son principe hyperrealiste. Car le modele chez mandiargues est une "autre" representation. Mandiargues ecrit a partir de la litterature et, de fait, a partir de son oeuvre propre qu'il ne cesse de reecrire. Et tandis que tout se reflete, la logique disparait en permettant a l'humour et au plaisir de l'ecriture de s'inscrire.