Cortège d’Orphée, 1969
GPO-0166
Collage on primed canvas
Twenty-five parts 40 x 40 cm each, overall dimensions 200 x 200 cm
Private collection, Geneva
The twenty-five canvases of this singular work, commissioned from the artist for a child's bedroom, each feature the cut-out colour reproduction of an animal, surrounded by other torn details of the same image. At the centre is the photograph of a dog that belonged to the artist at the time, while all around it are the images of animals taken from paintings, especially from those of Henri Rousseau.
The title alludes to Orpheus and his ability to gather animals around him. Enchanted by the sound of his lyre they followed him in a procession.
Details from the following paintings (from left to right and from top to bottom; the missing progressive numbers correspond to sources that have not as yet been identified):
1. Vittore Carpaccio, Battesimo dei Seleniti, 1507, tempera on wood, 141 x 285 cm, San Giorgio degli Schiavoni, Venice.
2. Jean Fouquet, L’Annonciation, 1452-60, miniature from Heures d’Étienne Chevalier, Musée Condé, Chantilly.
3. Henri Rousseau, La Cascade, 1910, oil on canvas, 116.2 x 150.2 cm, Art Institute, Chicago.
4. and 5. George Seurat, Un dimanche après-midi à l’île de la Grande Jatte, 1884-86, oil on canvas, 207.5 x 308.1 cm, Art Institute, Chicago.
7. Vittore Carpaccio, San Girolamo conduce nel monastero il leone ammansito, 1502, tempera on wood panel, 141 x 211 cm, San Giorgio degli Schiavoni, Venice.
8. Henri Rousseau, La charmeuse de serpents, 1907, oil on canvas, 169 x 189.5 cm, Musée d’Orsay, Paris.
9. Giotto di Bondone, Il sogno di Gioacchino, c. 1303-05, fresco, 200 x 185 cm, Cappella degli Scrovegni, Padua.
10. René Magritte, Le mal du pays, 1940, oil on canvas, 81 x 102 cm, private collection.
11. Henri Rousseau, Le nomade dormant, 1897, oil on canvas, 129.5 x 200.7 cm, The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
12. Diego Velázquez, Las Meninas, 1656, oil on canvas, 318 x 276 cm, Museo del Prado, Madrid.
15. Jean Fouquet, Louis XI préside le chapitre de Saint Michel, 1470, miniature, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris.
16. Francisco de Zurbarán, Cristo y la Virgen en Nazaret, c. 1640, oil on canvas, 165 x 218 cm, The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland.
17. Giacomo Balla, Dinamismo di un cane al guinzaglio, 1912, oil on canvas, 95.57 x 115.57 x 6.67 cm, Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo.
19. Stefano di Giovanni detto il Sassetta, Adorazione dei magi, c. 1435, tempera on wood panel, 31 x 36.4 cm, Monte dei Paschi di Siena, Siena.
20. Giotto di Bondone, Ritiro di Gioacchino tra i pastori, 1306, fresco, 200 x 185 cm, Cappella degli Scrovegni, Padua.
21. Vittore Carpaccio, Visione del vescovo Agostino nel suo studio, 1502, tempera on wood panel, 141 x 210 cm, San Giorgio degli Schiavoni, Venice.
22. Jan van Eyck, Portret van Giovanni Arnolfini en zijn vrouw, 1434, oil on wood panel, 82.2 x 60 cm, The National Gallery, London.
23. Henri Rousseau, Portrait de Pierre Loti, 1891, oil on canvas, 62 x 52 cm, Kunsthaus Zürich, Zurich.
25. Henri Rousseau, Le rêve, 1910, oil on canvas, 204.5 x 298.5 cm, The Museum of Modern Art, New York.
• Title from the song cycle by Francis Poulenc, Le Bestiaire ou Cortège d’Orphée, 1919, in turn inspired by Guillaume Apollinaire’s Le Bestiaire ou Cortège d’Orphée (Paris: Deplanche Éditeur, 1911).
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 1 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 166 p. 86, col. repr. |
