Illuminations. Moscou

Original ink composition in magenta, brown, green, and blue hues, titled and signed “Moscou / L D” by Léon Deubel made on the verso of a leaf from his collection of poems titled La Lumière natale.

Magnificent multicoloured ink-blot drawing (klecksography) signed by the poète maudit Léon Deubel, inspired by Arthur Rimbaud’s Illuminations. This early Rorschach-like fold drawing was created using a technique dear to Victor Hugo.

Deubel began experimenting with klecksographies a few years before taking his own life by throwing himself in the Marne river in 1913. In 1907, Deubel was living a bohemian life in Paris with his close friend Louis Pergaud. The two writers played with imaginative games along with Jean-Paul Laffitte, a young painter whom Deubel had met in Lille and remained connected. The method employed for these drawings consisted in tracing, with a broad and flowing hand, the name or initials of a city, a writer, or a famous artist using several coloured inks. Before the ink dried, the sheet was folded, creating a figure then discussed by their authors in relation to the name it represented.

This visual and interpretative process resonated deeply with Deubel’s Rimbaldian affinities. He borrowed the title of Rimbaud’s celebrated collection “Les Illuminations” to gather this series of drawings he intended for publication. Deubel who “suffered immensely from his obscurity” (Edgar Varèse) endeavoured here to covering the page with an explosion of vivid colours. He created this piece on the back of one of the leaves of his poem collection Lumière natale. He had already burned a large number of copies “to keep warm” (Jean-Jacques Bedu, Bohèmes en prose).

The Société des Amis de Louis Pergaud indicates that these “illuminated artworks collectively created with multicoloured ink” were found in one of Deubel’s trunks after his death, and miraculously escaped destruction: before drowning himself, the poet had burned his manuscripts and a large portion of his meagre personal effects.

A rare surviving artwork by Deubel, this “artist of ill-fated destiny” (Léon Bocquet).