“Colombes et Menfenil” in Text and Image: Taking Flight From Conquest in Aimé Césaire and Wifredo Lam’s Collaborative Aesthetics

“Colombes et Menfenil” in Text and Image: Taking Flight From Conquest in Aimé Césaire and Wifredo Lam’s Collaborative Aesthetics

This essay examines a little-studied aesthetic collaboration between Aimé Césaire and Wifredo Lam to depict doves and a bird of prey (called “menfenil”) in text and image. “Colombes et menfenil” was the title of a selection of poems by Césaire that was published in Hémisphères magazine in 1944 with...

Descripció completa

Guardat en:
Dades bibliogràfiques
Publicat a:URI:https://journals.openedition.org/coma,
Autor principal: Seligmann, Katerina Gonzalez
Format: Article ou chapitre numérique
Idioma:Anglais
Publicat: Continents manuscrits 2022
Matèries:
Césaire Aimé
Wifredo Lam
négritude
colonialisme
archétypes
collaboration esthétique
colonialism
Aimé Césaire
archetypes
collaborative aesthetics
Accés en línia:Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM
Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM
id openedition-oai:revues.org:coma_8544
record_format openedition
spelling openedition-oai:revues.org:coma_8544 https://doi.org/10.4000/coma.8544 urn:doi:10.4000/coma.8544 en https://journals.openedition.org/coma/8544 2022-04-21T02:00:00Z info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess article info:eu-repo/semantics/article urn:handle:20.500.13089/e6uu https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ “Colombes et Menfenil” in Text and Image: Taking Flight From Conquest in Aimé Césaire and Wifredo Lam’s Collaborative Aesthetics Continents manuscrits Institut des textes & manuscrits modernes (ITEM) info:eu-repo/semantics/reference/issn/2275-1742 URI:https://journals.openedition.org/coma Seligmann, Katerina Gonzalez Césaire Aimé Wifredo Lam négritude colonialisme archétypes collaboration esthétique colonialism Aimé Césaire Wifredo Lam archetypes collaborative aesthetics négritude This essay examines a little-studied aesthetic collaboration between Aimé Césaire and Wifredo Lam to depict doves and a bird of prey (called “menfenil”) in text and image. “Colombes et menfenil” was the title of a selection of poems by Césaire that was published in Hémisphères magazine in 1944 with an illustration by Wifredo Lam. Both birds also appear in Césaire’s Cahier d’un retour au pays natal and Lam’s illustrations of the Spanish translation of this poem published in Cuba the previous year. They go on to recur in later paintings by Lam: “Menfenil” (1947), “Lunguanda yembe” (1950), and “La colombe noire” (1959). The birds in question have archetypical significance as symbols of peace and war that connect to the history of colonialism. I propose with this essay a critical dialogue with Césaire and Lam’s work on these birds to diffuse the conquest-thinking that informs the symbolic economy and contributes to normalizing the persistence of racialized hierarchies embedded in the history of colonial dispossession and exploitation. In their collaborative aesthetic recasting of these archetypal bird figures, I argue that both poet and painter symbolically take them over to take flight from conquest. Cet essai analyse une collaboration esthétique peu étudiée, celle d’Aimé Césaire et de Wifredo Lam, à travers des colombes et un oiseau de proie (appelé « menfenil ») présents à la fois dans leurs textes et leurs images. « Colombes et menfenil » est le titre d’un groupe de poèmes de Césaire publié dans la revue Hémisphères en 1944, avec une illustration de Wifredo Lam. Les deux oiseaux apparaissent également dans le Cahier d’un retour au pays natal de Césaire et dans les illustrations offertes par Lam pour la traduction espagnole du poème, publiée à Cuba l’année précédente. Ils figurent aussi dans les peintures ultérieures de Lam : « Menfenil » (1947), « Lunguanda yembe » (1950) et « La colombe noire » (1959). Ces oiseaux représentent une figure archétypale de la paix et de la guerre liée à l’histoire du colonialisme. Je propose dans cet essai un dialogue critique avec l’œuvre de Césaire et de Lam concernant ces oiseaux pour examiner une pensée de la conquête qui a produit une économie symbolique contribuant à accréditer des hiérarchies raciales persistantes ancrées dans l’histoire de la dépossession et l’exploitation coloniales. Dans leur commune refonte esthétique, le poète et le peintre utilisent tous deux ces oiseaux archétypaux comme moyen pour s’envoler loin de la conquête.
collection OpenEdition Journal
language Anglais
format Article ou chapitre numérique
building 0/Bibliothèque numérique/
1/Bibliothèque numérique/OpenEdition Journals/
topic Césaire Aimé
Wifredo Lam
négritude
colonialisme
archétypes
collaboration esthétique
colonialism
Aimé Césaire
Wifredo Lam
archetypes
collaborative aesthetics
négritude
spellingShingle Césaire Aimé
Wifredo Lam
négritude
colonialisme
archétypes
collaboration esthétique
colonialism
Aimé Césaire
Wifredo Lam
archetypes
collaborative aesthetics
négritude
Seligmann, Katerina Gonzalez
“Colombes et Menfenil” in Text and Image: Taking Flight From Conquest in Aimé Césaire and Wifredo Lam’s Collaborative Aesthetics
description This essay examines a little-studied aesthetic collaboration between Aimé Césaire and Wifredo Lam to depict doves and a bird of prey (called “menfenil”) in text and image. “Colombes et menfenil” was the title of a selection of poems by Césaire that was published in Hémisphères magazine in 1944 with an illustration by Wifredo Lam. Both birds also appear in Césaire’s Cahier d’un retour au pays natal and Lam’s illustrations of the Spanish translation of this poem published in Cuba the previous year. They go on to recur in later paintings by Lam: “Menfenil” (1947), “Lunguanda yembe” (1950), and “La colombe noire” (1959). The birds in question have archetypical significance as symbols of peace and war that connect to the history of colonialism. I propose with this essay a critical dialogue with Césaire and Lam’s work on these birds to diffuse the conquest-thinking that informs the symbolic economy and contributes to normalizing the persistence of racialized hierarchies embedded in the history of colonial dispossession and exploitation. In their collaborative aesthetic recasting of these archetypal bird figures, I argue that both poet and painter symbolically take them over to take flight from conquest.
author Seligmann, Katerina Gonzalez
author_facet Seligmann, Katerina Gonzalez
author_sort Seligmann, Katerina Gonzalez
title “Colombes et Menfenil” in Text and Image: Taking Flight From Conquest in Aimé Césaire and Wifredo Lam’s Collaborative Aesthetics
title_short “Colombes et Menfenil” in Text and Image: Taking Flight From Conquest in Aimé Césaire and Wifredo Lam’s Collaborative Aesthetics
title_full “Colombes et Menfenil” in Text and Image: Taking Flight From Conquest in Aimé Césaire and Wifredo Lam’s Collaborative Aesthetics
title_fullStr “Colombes et Menfenil” in Text and Image: Taking Flight From Conquest in Aimé Césaire and Wifredo Lam’s Collaborative Aesthetics
title_full_unstemmed “Colombes et Menfenil” in Text and Image: Taking Flight From Conquest in Aimé Césaire and Wifredo Lam’s Collaborative Aesthetics
title_sort “colombes et menfenil” in text and image: taking flight from conquest in aimé césaire and wifredo lam’s collaborative aesthetics
publisher Continents manuscrits
publishDate 2022
container_title URI:https://journals.openedition.org/coma
url https://ezproxy.univ-orleans.fr/login?url=https://doi.org/10.4000/coma.8544
https://ezproxy.univ-orleans.fr/login?url=https://journals.openedition.org/coma/8544
_version_ 1877293209916276736

Ítems similars