User:Dragoon16/sandbox

Autobiography of Etienne Roth

Those who love my girls and boys, who adopt and carry them almost throughout the whole world, have been asking me for these lines jar long a time. It took me many years to make up my mind, since I do not believe to be a famous personage and would not impose the reading of my memories upon anyone. But I often think of you, my dear ladies, with whom I have been acquainted one day in a gallery, from where you departed, each of you, with one of my paintings under your arm, going, one to south-Africa, the other to Peru.

When looking at my stamp-album at an age, which is today that oj my favorite models, I should never have believed that, one day, a strong tie would unite me to persons, living in those miraculous lands. I owe also an answer to you Sir, who were so very grieved by the loss of your pictures, destroyed by fire in your home in Canada, and to you, dear Sir, who underwent an incredible experience with the policemen of Saint-Germain-des-Pres, because you tore off one of my posters at three a/clock in the morning. You took tremendous trouble to explain to them, that doing it after the last day of the exhibition, you did no harm to anyone.

I know that your curiosity jar the personality of the painter and his models derives from the fact that the interest of my paintings does not solely lie in their pictorial and plastic qualities. It seems, I give to the world the image - rather disconcerting to the author of my paintings - of a dynamic young man, smiling and happy. Indeed I do not feel responsible, neither for what I am, nor far what I do. I was born in Budapest, under the sign of the Ram, and that animal is endowed by nature -- as everyone knows -- with a motor easy to race, with brakes of little efficiency, and with horns, which help less to assail than to protect his skull, when rushing headlong.

As far my paintings, they are the work of the lonely, a little savage, shy and dreaming boy, who I have been and who has succeeded to survive in me. And it is he that paints with my hands of a man, that world of children and teenagers, which I love so much, and from which I was chased by time, quite long ago, but to which I remain secretly tied, in the middle of this indefinable « No Man's Land », where I am living. For, one must be from somewhere, now, I have never really succeeded to adjust my-self to, and to incorporate in the world of the grownups. Actually, I am as much the creature, as the creator of my paintings; without them, I should not be the man I am.

I was born a dreamer, to an extraordinary extent. A mixture at Walter Mitty and Ferdinand the Bull. At school, they nicknamed me «Cornpoppy» and «Little Red Riding Hood». For a boy with the frame of a bulldozer, it was artfully pejorative.

I abhorred turbulent games and spent the best part of my time dreaming in a secluded corner. At the age of six, I received spectacles made in cartoon and trimmed with cellophane of different colours. I spent many hours in the garden, gazing on, through those spectacles, at a world more beautiful than life. That may be the reason why I became a painter. Indeed, every first shock in my life -- for good or for bad -- committed my-self definitively. Once, I received a pony. The quivering of his warm neck under my caressing hand, filled me with an unspeakable feeling -- it became the recollection of my first happiness. And even today, I cannot pass in front of a horse-butchery, without experiencing a real discomfort. (One day, my parents -- in order to cure me from my « sensibility » and this special dislike of mine -- bought for dinner, without telling me, horse-sausages. I did not eat them, finding their taste queer. Fortunately, because in this manner, somebody at least, stayed sound, to nurse the remainder of the family, whom the above-mentioned sausages sent to bed for three days, with a severe intoxication.)

But, in spite of being an unusually gentle boy, in facing certain abuses, which that very gentleness had created, my reactions were as unexpected, as violent.

At the age of eight, my parents were forced to rescue from my hands an old peasant-woman, whom I was pulling to pieces, Practically, they did not punish me, the sudden monstrousness of their son, having startled them to much. Now, that old witch had wrung the neck of my tamed pigeon, snatching him from my shoulder. It was well done for her, and I hope she is gone to hell in the meanwhile. Still, I think of it, in my little studio, where birds are living free, The parakeet and the turtle-dove are used to fight here sometimes aerial battles, above my head, till one of them has to do a forced landing on it.

My little friends have given me the victim's part in that game, which all the generations of school-children do rediscover: one pretends to rag, to fight, and the whole gang falls on an innocent, who has to collect all the blows. The day I had had enough of it, I pulled my-self together and, with the seriousness I put in everything, I piled up half a dozen of my aggressors in the middle of the hall and began to throw down the desks on the lot, when the headmaster entered the classroom. I was not lucky; he, which was yelling to the utmost at the bottom of the heap, was his own son. Little by little, it occurred to me that an evil universe was doing its best to change the Little Red Riding Rood in the Naughty Big Wolf. Even Nature played a nasty trick on me, allotting to me gifts and tastes, as opposite, as incompatible. I wished to become a sportsman, but was gifted only for boxing, which I hate. I wanted to study music; I did not have a good ear for music. On the other hand, I shot as if born with a gun in each hand, in despite of my dislike of fire-arms, no matter if serving for war, hunting or holdups. Making blunder after blunder, at the peaceable games of a fair, I drew all the winning lots in my capacity as a knife-thrower.

I ended up by being haunted, during many years, by the same nightmare: I dreamt the Sheriff was hanging me.

My studies have not been brilliant. For some of my teachers, I was a block-head, full of willingness, but incapable, for some others, an intelligent, but lazy boy. In fact, I was always tired, because it is very tiresome to be a dreamer: one feels like living several lives together and one becomes exhausted in vain struggles, trying to distinguish fiction from reality. More, I was unable to find interest in what did not arouse my passion. One evening, I tried to learn my geography-lesson. The question was about the cities of South England. They were too near. England could not be a source of inspiration to me. I turned over the pages; reached Chile. Next day, in school: double zero. One jar England, of which I did not know anything, th9 second jar Chile, of which I stubbornly was talking in an unreasonable manner.

But several years later, in Paris, when in hiding before the Gestapo, I entered in the false identity-papers, which I had forged my-self, Santiago de Chile as my birthplace. For, my faithfulness to my dreams did always help me 10 live and sometimes even to be happy.

So, at the age of thirty-five, I bought my-self, at a foolish price, the very rare stamp, I has dreamt of, at ten, though my passion for stamps had forsook me since long. And nearly at the same epoch, I paid me that motor-car on pedals, which I did not possess as a kid. This one was for grown-ups, an horrible tool, called Vela-car. What revenge, when I took the wheel! But also, what relief, when I succeeded to sell the car at a quarter of its price! And even last week, I had to stop my-self from buying the enormous white Cadillac, which I was admiring at a time, when I had to scratch the bottom of my pockets to buy a metro-ticket. Always sublime, its price went down with the passing years and it is quite accessible by now. But here, I feared to jam it in one of the narrow lanes of Montmartre, from where one could only get it out in pieces.

And the girl… The girl, whose absent-minded look met mine, one day, at a street corner. I did not have even a single chance to thousand to see her again, not even a single chance to a million, to know her, not even a single chance to the number of the stars to please her. But, even a single chance is also a chance. Even against the number of stars. I could say with Kipling. «But this is another story». I would be telling lies.

My mother desired to make a doctor of me, but I feared as much the diseases of others, as mine own. In every case, I knew, that one day I should be a painter. I would draw; this was the only point, where my talents and my tastes went together. As, in order to become a painter, I had to go to Paris, I bought me a French dictionary, at the nearest shop. I was ten years old. At twenty-two, I landed in Paris. In the meantime, expelled for ever from High School, I have been an unsuccessfully apprenticed here and there, office- clerk afterwards, attending in the same time evening-courses at the: Academy of Fine Arts. Friends were waiting for me at the Gare de l'Est; they made me rush down the Metro-stairs, and the first Parisian landscape I saw, was the view from the terrace of the Danton Coffeehouse. Since, I have been always under the impression that I was born there, between two tables, and all my life « bejore », seems to me a part of a former existence. For even living a lonely life, even working secluded, it was only in Paris and through Paris, that I could assert my-self.

In the Quartier Latin, I met school fellows from the Academy, who have preceded me there. The first time I get into touch with them and their milieu, I was bewildered. Z. was painting childish landscapes, enlivened by little clumsy fellows, hopeless trying to camouflage his extraordinary virtuosity as a draughtsman. K., a big boy, with a Savonarola- profile, drew with cold resoluteness red, gray and black stripes. I, by my-self, found that real children and real fools are doing it much better.

I would been feeling very fine under these surroundings -- if I were not aiming to be a painter, my-self too. But as such, I was in opposition to everything. I was envious at the self-assurance, the self reliance of my fellows, and even of their abilities -- for, I always inclined to find more talent in everyone than in my-self -- but I had no fancy to model my-self after them. « Ismes » and « Schools » are open tracks for caravans, but I am made for solitary travels, and I did not possess the soul of a follower, nor that of a leader. If I wanted to paint, it was only because I have been hoping, that deeply buried in my soul, was living the seed of a work, which, in the long run, would come to light one day, suddenly, by a sole stroke, like a birth. Yes, I think I was wanting to « have paintings » as other want to have children. And as one must not have a Nobel -- or a Beauty-price to hope for the most intelligent and the most beautiful children of the world, I could dream to achieve one day pictures, at which my severe auto criticism would forbid me to think. But, to realize my aim, I had to hold my hands over my ears and close my eyes to foreign influences, for, it is always annoying to have children, looking like one of the neighbors.

Besides, I have always been moved only by the work of other solitary artists, whose canvasses speak to the onlooker, but whom the rising generations of painters question in vain. in their work there is nothing to continue, nothing to develop, because it is mostly the reflect, the concretization of a single individual. Even in my capacity as an artist, I love only what affects me as a human being. The hoaxes of the Anti-Painting, nodding from their basis of pseudo-philosophy, were boring me, and if I was admiring beautiful decorative painting, it wasn’t just in my line. But, what became my pet aversion, was the expression: «A good canvas». What an endeavor to succeed one of them! I have seen plenty of those good canvasses and I admired their qualities, as one ought to do.

They were made by good artists, but queer enough, the great Masters have not done many ones, Their paintings are beautiful, marvelous, magnificent, and sometimes even bad, when they were not successful, for nobody can succeed in everything, I found that a painting, which is only « a good one » is not more than a derisory success, the triumph of handicraft. I spent many hours in the Louvre, I entered it with the feeling of a pilgrim arriving before the « Kaaba ». In my mind, the names of Leonardo, of Raphael, of Rembrandt. Sure, they remain always Gods. But, when going away, the recollection of two pictures threw shade on all the others, « The Virgin of the green Cushion » by Solaria and « Condottiere » by Antonello of Messina. The Image of Love, And the Image of Hate, One has to feel in order to express one-self. And find favor with God to succeed, Two pictures, but above all, a statue: « The Victory of Samothrace », that formidable catalyzer of dreams, given to mankind, thousands of years ago, by a man, who achieved the performance to express the wind, the air, the sea, the sky, by stone. Infinite lightness by infinite heaviness. And originating from here, that idea; Are they not too premature, those crashing revolutions in painting, that « tabula rasa » in that art, which was twenty centuries later as sculpture in the epoch of Pericles --perhaps because so difficult!

There were not highly' artistic preoccupations, which made me leave the Quartier Latin, but Hunger. At this particular moment, my dream has been to become an underground railway- puncher, because that occupation could permit me simultaneously with making a living by day-light -- to thin~ what I would create in the evening-hours But it was unrealizable. Thus, I have survived during many years, thanks to little often repeated miracles and owing to small jobs, which had or not some connection with painting. I outlived even the War and the German Occupation. At one time I made humoristic drawings, at another models to impress in silk-goods. And I succeeded even to sell some paintings. When I could not make a living in this way, as I did not possess a trade, nor a labor-permit, I was obliged to do jobs, which nobody would accept. The man, who said that there does not exist stupid work, had never been piercing forged worm-holes through the legs of false Louis XIII armchairs for a manufacturer of imitated antiquities, dreaming simultaneously of true sausage to buy in the evening with the money gained in this way. I have experienced years of need and weeks of prosperity, years of lean cow, and weeks of fat cows, growing thin and thick together with them. For, never having known to save during my prosperous days, I ate throughout the whole day and that did me live on my fat during the bad periods.

At a particular good epoch I ordered a suit from an old, very fussy tailor. He wanted seven tryings-on and the same number of weeks to finish it. But, when completed, I wasn't able to wear it, having so much grew fatter. What a pity to be compelled to sell it the very evening to an old-clothes-dealer, in order to pay for my room, all the more deplorable, as I was going to lose weight!

I would continue to paint, writing, (more truly, « thinking », when painting, because I did never put them on paper), poems and fairy tales, in order to get rid of that literature, which one had recommended me not to insert in my paintings. For, the Bacillus of the « Good Canvas'» came all the same under my skin at that time.

I am dwelling in one of these appalling old grey « Faubourg »houses, which I cherish with a rather shameful love -- and their high raw is bordering on one of these « ... plis sinueux des vieilles capitales. ou tout, meme l'horreur tourne d l'enchantement » in the words of Baudelaire. On the near wasteland are often standing trailers Of Nomads. One evening, I went down to buy bread. Leaning with her back against the backer's show-window, was sitting a small girl, a little Gipsy. Her face besmeared by chocolate and lipstick (she wasn't even four) she stared from down to up at me, with her marvelous look, stealing away under the fringes of her entangled hair.

I did not buy bread. I went up and took a canvas. I wanted to « recreate » the kid. I wanted her here, before me, that she could continue to look at me till it would hurt. I was like a madman. Painting? I did not care for! It wasn't a picture, I have been wishing to do, but sorcery. If I took color-tubes, brushes, knives, it was only because I did not possess a magic rod, and I made use of them, automatically, in a manner, which had nothing to do with my usual technic

And at four o'clock in the morning, she was there, before me. To look at me? No, we were there, we were facing each other. At least, I had this feeling. And I went to bed. Next morning, I drew my balance-sheet. Surely, I did not achieve a magic operation. It was only a very small picture. But, it was the Picture, I wanted to do for twenty years. Do you know the story of the poor man, to whom the Devil sold the secret how to make gold. He well explained every thing, the Devil, -- and added afterwards: Now you owe to succeed, Under one condition, but a very important one; during the entire proceedings, you must avoid to think of the White Elephant, And for certain, the poor chap eventually threw away his tools, crying out, « To Hell with this Devil! I never thought of the White Elephant and now, I cannot think of anything else but the White Elephant ».

Well, I for my-self did not think of the White Elephant last night! What use of concealing before you, that I looked at my canvas with a beatific satisfaction? Please, do not find here neither vanity, nor self-conceit. It was only the artless and astonished joy of Mother Hen, which, after hatching and watching over ducklings for a whole life, would see for the first time a chicken, It isn't certain that a chicken is nicer than a duckling, but for a Mother Hen, it is, without the shadow Of a doubt. For the cock also, So, instead of putting my signature, as usual, I merely entered my name in capital letters in a corner of the canvas, When giving birth to a child, you does not sign, but you bestow him with your name.

My studio is very small, it overlooks a dull courtyard. The near chimneys smoke, the sparrows pick up crumbs from the roof, and the laundry adorns the windows. One can see that decorum on my painting « Woman at the Window ». But the woman has never been there. Nobody comes here, especially no my models. I work after ultra-rapid sketches, combined with recollections, Sometimes even photographs, at which I look well and which I hide afterwards. The personage or the personages of the picture have to merge with the models, which have inspired them; in order to take their place, their verity, their reality. I want to speak of that truth and that reality, which a photograph does never possess, for the objective looks with the same impersonal unconcern on those, whom we love and on the other ones, and gives the same attention to all the particulars of a face. Now, we never see a face, but a look, surrounded by a face. Sometimes it happens to me, to speak to my pictures, when painting, telling them: « Please, smile a little; no, not so much... » Or saying to them some words, which would bring to their face the expression I was looking tor. For, that is the way I proceed with my models, notwithstanding if children or teenagers. I look at them as they are, but afterwards, speaking to them, I try to bring to their features and to their eyes the successive expressions, which I record in my mind.

The rough drafts are only a guiding- mark for the reconstruction. These « mental photographs » are obstructing my memory to such an extent. that I do sometimes regain them only by chance, being first unaware of their presence during my work, and they would force my attention in such a manner as to oblige me to change the prime trend of the painting. It also happens to me to draw an oval with some features and to wait for « someone » to come. And he comes. I would recognize him by a small particular, which is sketching out, and it would uncover it-self wholly, in order to superpose the picture, as if I were working in bright light. But concerning my important paintings, I do « concoct » them previously in my mind, for months and ever for years.

I was often told that my love for children was obvious. It isn't quite the case; they are liking me, with a mocking and wonderfully disrespectful friendship of an accomplice. In me, they find out the forged adult, one of their-selves, who, disguised in a grown-up, would have his entries in the enemy-camp, from where he would return towards them, often loaded with good and wonderful things, and even with a certain wisdom, good to refer to sometimes. The parents have me not always to their liking, for I cause a mess by my sale presence, and because an apparent well-educated child does regain his true nature as soon as I appear. I do not « play the fool », I speak to them as an equal to an equal on all things of their interest, and I have not any merit in it, because our talks are always interesting. I like to see their distrust changing in confidence, their fear in hope, and their instantaneous reaction to every impulse. It is that imperceptible vibration, that ever lasting transition of the stream of feelings, which is so marvelous to observe, for it is Life. It is this stream, [ tried to paint, the instant containing the previous instant and yet the following one. This is what I -mean: When projecting on the screen the image of an entirely motionless face, we are feeling, knowing and seeing it « lives». But, let us take one of the snapshots, which compose the motion-picture, catch a film-shooting of it by the cine-camera and let us project the reel you get in this way, then, in spite of the habitual thrill of the movies, not even a sole instant, we will have the feeling of life in our picture. When I feel my-self particularly drawn towards the little Gypsies, whom I trace out, hanging about the trailers on the vast grounds, it occurs because they are the most nearest to nature, their faces the most expressive ones (they do not know reading, nor writing) and, in one word: the most colorful. In their incredible attire, under often appalling conditions, they are so much overflowing with life, that giving the impression to have get a twofold electrical charge, And how beautiful they are! And what rich hair! What wonderful thing, hair could be, as much as hairdressers do not interfere with, at least, not too much. Hair lives with the sun, with the rain, with the wind. And also with joys and sorrows, At the movies, you can see an advertising film, showing two young women, who bend down and raise their head, successively. The hair-dressing of one of both, remains faultless, that of the other flows around her face. I have never seen an advertising, so contrary to its aim.

I knew among the Gypsies, marvelous little girls with names, sounding like sweet music: Bella, Sonya, Magnana, and also Folie and Cassine, And little boys, always ready to fight for the best place in life. A mused, puzzled, or frightened, they are always standing close together, instinctively gathering in a fraternal and protecting row. But show them only sweets or coins, and they will rush. As long as you ma1ce an equal distribution, you can get away without your dresses tored or too much dirtied. But, beware of committing an injustice! If you had the bad luck to give a candle to each one, and two to only one at them, or a yellow coin to one and a white one to the other, your have caused a brawl, a free for all.

A little boy, to whom I have once given only twenty cents, knowing that his brother had had fifty, threw a fit. Exhausted, I did cry to him: « Shut up and you will have a Franc». And in the very moment, his convulsed face, dirty and covered with tears, changed in so large a smile, that he was giving the image of highest happiness.

In the beginning, I distributed them toys, but quickly I had to give up. The whole gang melt in a terrifying scuffle over a miserable doll and these, who succeeded to tear off an arm or a foot, run away with them, happy, but hounded by those who got nothing.

With the teenagers, the same thing would happen. I made always friends with them, both the boys and the girls. I say « friends », what will mean that we, they and my-self, had no endeavor to make in order to adapt one to the other.

I like to see on their face this waiting for the future, which in my mind took the place tor long a while, of the present time. Unfortunately, they grow old very soon. And often badly.

There we are! I have spoken at length of that detestable « Ego », I do not beg excuse; those who were bored, have forsook the reading of these lines since long. Now, we have to be between ourselves, having, each of us, our own personality; without it we were all only ants, but our sensibility is situated on the same wave-lengths.

As a painter, I have highs and downs. It happens to me to be content, not of my-self, but of what I think to have succeeded. However, often I want to possess much more talent so that to go very far, knowing also that it is impossible to attain the end of the road. Nobody did succeed to arrive there except perhaps Pygmalion, and he, by himself, lived only in the legend.

Etienne Roth, 1965

Solo Exhibits: Le jury de l’exposition de la Palette Frangaise Rouen, 1961, un Diplôme d’Honneur PARIS 1952 PARIS 1960 PARIS 1961 PARIS 1962

This booklet was completed printed on the presses of Printing Abécé, 21, rue Juliette – Dodu Paris (10e) March 1965