Featured The Despair of Genius.....

I’ve tried using whatever leads I can – the images, the text, the name ‘Ryba’ etc, but can’t track anything down.

 

Many thanks for these references. I've also ordered a copy of Bamber Gascoigne's book on identifying prints. I think if it is a lithograph then it must be hand-made as opposed to a photo/mechanical process. I say this because under magnification I’m not seeing any microscopic haziness along the black and white boundaries which I think you’d normally get with a photo/mechanical one. I’ve also used the blue & white facility on the iphone magnifier app and again the boundaries appear very clean. I include a close-up of the ashtray on the table.

 

You do know that Andrea Chenier is a very well known opera about the poet? In 1973, it had an acclaimed European TV broadcast.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrea_Chénier

Debora

 

The holly in the seated figures lap -- I'll call her Maddalena for now -- appears to be a laurel crown such as poets would wear. Here's Dante in one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurel_wreath

 

Yes, how interesting. I’d been rather fixated on 1874 with Marx, Engels and Russian social movements and so a philosopher genius. But I can see a poetic/literary genius, and the lifestyle hints may be more in keeping with that. But then there’s that clenched fist salute on the liquor bottle. Hmmm. Don’t know. By the way that Michael Ryba lead you gave me – the website appears to have had no admin input since 2015 so I’m thinking my message may have disappeared into the ether. What I have done in addition though is to contact a caricature museum in Germany so maybe make some progress there.

 

I don't want to belabor this but... Given "the despair of genius" is a quote from the French poet André Chénier, is there a reason you don't believe the figure to represent André Chénier? Or use him to symbolize the struggling artist more generally? He is dressed in a costume correct for the pre-revolutionary period, the portraits above him are of the same period, he is surrounded by strewn papers symbolizing aborted creative effort and the (informal) tools of the creative trade (e.g. cigarettes, alcohol, coffee.) The phrase is not an unknown one; it was used by both Dickens and Bulwer Lytton.

Debora

 

Oops sorry, I’m being obtuse. The simple answer is I don’t know. My opinion - I feel that it’s a very introspective German satirical piece on whether to admire or pity the genius. I don’t think it’s about Chénier in particular, but aborted and/or mis-directed creative effort – yes, definitely.

 

In a German wikipedia entry for Michael Ryba, the artist and cartoonist, it notes:
"His work is characterized by a rare diversity, so it includes works of different styles such as realistic depictions, abstract art, cartoons and architecture. Ryba is one of the founders and leading representatives of cartoon art."
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Ryba

Here are some details from his 1975-1977 work for the comic series Schindel-Schwinger:

hands (note the enlarged last digits) -


big feet -


https://www.flohheim.de/index.html

 

Many thanks for that. I think the key thing for me is to nail down the date. The paper is on such a thick wove, and with a lot of surface soiling, that I find it almost impossible to know if it’s 1974 or 1874. If it’s 1974 then I agree with you, Michael Ryba is almost certainly the artist, and the link to the Chénier opera suggested earlier is a real possibility. If 1874 and a namesake – well who knows?

 

Have you looked for a watermark on the paper? Hold it up to the light and see if there is a manufacturer's name or logo visible. That may yield a clue as to age. Strathmore, for example, began making artists' paper in 1899.

Another approach is to look at other examples of German satirical drawings of the 1870s, and see if there are any similarities in style.

 

Sure doesn't look like 1874 to me. To my eye that has hippy written all over it... à la Robert Crumb, Gilbert Shelton.

 

Judging by the shape of the bottle on the table it's definitely not from 1870s,the shape of the bottle is modern and the lip looks like a screw cap or lift cap. To me it has to be 1974 and thus Michael Ryba is most likely your artist.

 

It seems that the phrase "despair of genius" was not directly attributed to Chenier.

Curiously, it appears in an article titled "Death Scenes of Remarkable Persons" published in "Tegg's Magazine of Knowledge and Amusement" in 1844, by "the author of 'Is It Peace?' and 'Nature Our Teacher' ". Note that the quotation marks are around "To die so young - and there was something here" -


https://www.google.com/books/edition/Tegg_s_magazine_of_knowledge_and_amuseme/vXUEAAAAQAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq=Chenier+"to+die+so+young"&pg=PA92&printsec=frontcover

I have not been able to identify the author of "Death Scenes of Remarkable People", but it may have been Edward Bulwer Lytton. He uses the same phrase in an introductory passage to his poem "Andre Chenier: Farewell to the Beautiful, Within", part of his series "Narrative Lyrics, or the Parcae: In Six Leaves from the Sibyl's Book". The series includes one titled: "Napoleon at Isola Bella", and the one immediately preceding the one on Chenier is titled: "Mazarin: Farewell to the Beautiful, Without". The poems are included in an 1860 edition of "The Poetical Works of Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton", but were probably written earlier:

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/34298/34298-h/34298-h.htm#NARRATIVE_LYRICS

Each of the poems in the series is prefaced with a brief introductory passage, most including quotations and references to Bulwer's sources. In the case of the Chenier entry, there are double quotes at the beginning and end of the passage, and single quotes (indicating a quote within a quote) only around the phrases 'To die so young' and 'And there was something here!' , and the citation notice points to "Thiers" -

The Parcæ.—Leaf the Third.
ANDRÉ CHÉNIER.
FAREWELL TO THE BEAUTIFUL, WITHIN.​

"André Chénier, the original of whatever is truest to nature and genuine passion, in the modern poetry of France, died by the guillotine, July 27, 1794. In ascending the scaffold, he cried, 'To die so young!' 'And there was something here!' he added, striking his forehead, not in the fear of death, but the despair of genius!"—See Thiers, vol. iv. p. 83.

An 1852 article in the Irish Quarterly Review, "Poets of Yesterday and To-Day", also attributes the same quotation to "Thiers" when discussing the poetry of Edward Bulwer Lytton, and makes clear with italics the words spoken by Chenier:


https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Irish_Quarterly_Review/l4sEAAAAQAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&dq="whatever+is+truest+to+nature+and+genuine+passion"&pg=PA486&printsec=frontcover

The "Thiers" mentioned in the Irish Quarterly Review article and by Lytton probably refers to Marie Joseph Louis Adolph Thiers , who wrote "Histoire de la Revolution Francaise" and "Histoire du Consulat et de l'Empire", both published in 1845.

I have not been able to pin down where the phrase appears in Thiers's works, perhaps because of translation issues. The only mention of Chenier I could find in "Histoire de la Revolution Francaise" is:

"Dans le nombre étaient deux poëtes célèbres , Roucher , l'auteur des Mois , et le jeune Mort de Roucher André Chénier , qui laissa d'admirables ébauches et que la France regrettera autant que tous ces jeunes hommes de génie , orateurs" ...

(translation: Among the number were two famous poets, Roucher, the author of Les Mois, and the young Mort de Roucher André Chénier, who left admirable sketches and which France will miss as much as all these young men of genius, orators)...

(searching with google Advanced Book Search for Author: Adolph Thiers and Exact Phrase: Andre Chenier)

What does all this mean? I have no idea.......
I imagine Edward Bulwer Lytton would be the most widely known source for the quotation, even though it may have originated with Thiers. On the other hand, a German artist (19th or 20th century) may have studied the French Revolution and read Thiers's work. Either way, the sentiment is clearly associated with Andre Chenier.

 

Many thanks. I’m definitely swinging round to the consensus view here that this is a 1974 work, and the correspondence with the Chénier opera date makes that a real possibility as the inspiration. And maybe the language on the sheets of paper is Greek, which would again tie back to Chénier. I struggle a bit with the sentiment of ‘despair of a genius’ as used in my drawing. The beginning of the text reads ‘Die Verzweiflung des Genies findet nicht die gewuenschte Anteilnahme’ which I kind of interpret as a rather self-pitying ‘Look I’m a genius in despair and I’m not getting any sympathy from you guys’ which seems a very different sentiment from the self-effacing ‘To die so young – and there was something there’ context.

 

Haha a mistake like when the plastic water bottle found its way onto a ‘Downton Abbey’ set. I’m also coming to the view that this is 1974 but in defence of the artist I do think those squat cylindrical bottles were used for spirits in the 19th century.

 

No watermark or manufacturer mark I’m afraid. And detailed pieces of cartoon art definitely feel more 20th than 19th century.

 

A 18ct bottle to me would have an applied lip,the bottle on the table is moulded

 

There also was a new biography of Andre Chenier published in 1970, by Gabriel D'Aubarede. It may be that Thiers is cited there. At any rate, it is clear that there was renewed interest in Chenier in the early 1970s.

I have to climb back out of this rabbit hole now.........

 

OK, I lied. One more comment. The character of the ink lines is more consistent with something like a rapidograph pen (invented in 1953), rather than a dip pen, or possiblly a fountain pen, that would have been available in 1874.