Introduction

Introduction Henri Michaux is, without a doubt, the most versatile, prolific, yet least understood poet of the twentieth century. His first publication dates from 1922, and during the next 62 years he continued writing and pub­ lishing at a steady rate until his death in 1984. All told, his written work includes about 25 volumes with Editions Gallimard alone and about 50 volumes with various other publishers. It is, of course, impossible to categorize such a prolific writer as Michaux, especially since he has experimented with a wide variety of styles, genres, techniques, and forms during his lifetime. Thematically, his work includes books about his travel adventures in South America and in Asia, books relating strange experiences in imaginary countries, several books about his experimenta­ tion with drugs, especially mescaline, in the mid-50’s and again in the early 80’s, essays of art criticism on the paintings of Paul Klee, René Magritte, and others, interpretations of the paintings of patients in a mental hospital, and other essays investigating subjects as varied as Chinese calligraphy, daydreams, the role of the imagination, night dreams, and music. Stylistically, his work is equally versatile: he has written spiritual meditations, prose, aphorisms, plays, essays, and poems in verse—some with an incredible lightness of touch and sense of humor, others with a bleakness of outlook or a frightening intensity. But this is not all. In addition to being one of the most important poets of the twentieth century, Michaux is also an accomplished and pro­ lific artist. Since his first major exhibition in Paris in 1937, he has exhibited widely throughout North America and Europe. There was a large retrospective of Michaux’s artwork at the Centre Georges Pom­ pidou in 1978 that then traveled on to New York’s Guggenheim Museum and Montreal’s Museum of Contemporary Art, and a permanent collec­ tion of Michaux’s artwork is now housed at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Just as it is difficult to categorize his writings, it is equally difficult to categorize his paintings. He has experimented with watercolor, India ink, gouache, oil, pencil, and acrylics on wood, paper, carton, canvas, and light and dark backgrounds. He has illustrated many of his own texts. He has produced numerous mescaline drawings, strange zigzagging lines that attest to the impossibility of representing the mescaline experi­ ence while under the influence of the drug. As Michaux repeats often throughout his work, painting was the means by which he liberated Vo l . XXVI, No. 3 3 I n tr o d u c tio n himself from what he called “ the language of others,” from ready-made rules, and from conventions of representation. If language depends on a pre-existing linguistic system and is spoken according to anonymous cultural codes, painting, for Michaux, involves a more original and spon­ taneous gesture on the part of the artist: “ Si je tiens à aller par des traits plutôt que par des mots, c’est toujours pour entrer en relation avec ce que j ’ai de plus précieux, de plus vrai, de plus replié, de plus ‘mien’...” (Emergences-Résurgences, p. 18). Painting was a way to apprehend the world through a different window, so to speak. One point that all critics seem to agree on is that any attempt at classi­ fication in the case of Michaux proves futile. This statement is not meant as a unifying gesture, but rather as an open-ended introduction to the eight essays included in this volume—essays whose differing concerns and differing critical strategies reflect and highlight the versatility of Michaux’s production itself. Laurie Edson 4 F a ll 1986 ...