Joachim-Raphaël Boronali
Stories behind the Works of Art
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The Sun Fell Asleep over the Adriatic (1910). Joachim-Raphaël Boronali
In 1910, a time of avant-garde effervescence in Paris, the Salon des Indépendants was shaken by this work hung between paintings by Matisse and Rousseau.
It was the year of the First Abstract Watercolor by Kandinsky. (Hilma af Klint had already painted abstract paintings, but they had not yet been shown to the public.) The style this work could be identified with is Abstract Expressionism, but there were still decades to go for that movement to emerge.
This work was the start of a new movement: Excessivism, which included a wonderful manifesto, as every movement used to do in those days.
Needless to say, it was the talk of the critics (for and against) who in the newspapers gave their opinions about the work and the ideas expressed in the manifesto.
The work of Boronali —an unknown, mysterious artist— was praised as “a marvel of expressionist art.”
But the mystery was unveiled a couple of weeks later by the protagonist himself. And the protagonist was not Boronali, but a young writer who called himself Dorgelés.
He was a regular customer at Au Lapin Agile, the cabaret frequented by the brilliant artists who lived in Montmartre. The list of these artists is long, but for the sake of illustration, let’s write down two surnames: Picasso and Modigliani.
Dorgelés, who had the idea, wrote the manifesto. And together with several accomplices who joined in, he had the background of the painting painted by two artists who happened to be there.
Then they tied a paintbrush to the tail of the donkey Lolo (the donkey of Père Frédé, the owner of Lapin Agile). They tempted him with carrots, so he wagged his tail, giving violent brushstrokes on the canvas.
Everything was done in the presence of a notary, so that it was indisputably documented. And this is how the most important Parisian critics of the time and intellectual enthusiasts of avant-gardism were ridiculed.
A story that challenges us to reflect on the excessive “intellectuality” in art. Or about the inconsequence of impact, however shocking it may be, when it has no support, when there is no “something else.”
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