Henri Michaux

Henri Michaux
Born	(1899-05-24)24 May 1899 Namur, Belgium
Died	Paris, France
Occupation	Poet, journalist and painter
Genre	Surrealism, asemic writing
Notable works	My Properties (1929); Plume (1938); Miserable Miracle: Mescaline (1956).

Henri Michaux (French: [miʃo]; 24 May 1899 – 19 October 1984) was a Belgian-born French poet, writer and painter. Michaux is best known for his poetry and prose, especially his texts chronicling his psychedelic experiments with LSD and mescaline which include Miserable Miracle and The Major Ordeals of the Mind and the Countless Minor Ones, as well as his idiosyncratic travelogues and books of art criticism.

Biography

Travels

In 1930 and 1931, Michaux visited Japan, China and India. The result of this trip was the book A Barbarian in Asia. Asian culture became one of his biggest influences. The philosophy of Buddhism and calligraphy later became principal subjects of many of his poems and inspired many of his drawings. He also visited Ecuador and published a travelogue book of the same name. His travels across the Americas finished in Brazil in 1939, and he stayed there for two years.

Michaux is also known for his stories about Plume – "a peaceful man" – perhaps the most unenterprising hero in the history of literature, and his many misfortunes. In 1955 he became a citizen of France, and he lived the rest of his life there along with his family. He became a mutual friend of Romanian pessimist philosopher and French citizen Emil Cioran around the same time. In 1965 he won the grand prix national des Lettres, which he refused to accept.

Visual arts

Michaux was an idiosyncratic visual artist, associated with the Tachiste movement in the 1940s and 50s. His work often makes use of dense, suggestively gestural strokes that incorporates elements of calligraphy, asemic writing, and abstract expressionism. The Museum of Modern Art in Paris and the Guggenheim Museum in New York both had major shows of his work in 1978.

See also

L'Infini turbulent

Bibliography

• Ball, David (ed.): Darkness Moves: An Henri Michaux Anthology 1927–1984, Translated, Selected and Presented by David Ball. University of California Press, 1994.
• Bäckström, Per. Enhet i mångfalden. Henri Michaux och det groteska (Unity in the Plenitude. Henri Michaux and the Grotesque), Lund: Ellerström, 2005.
• Bäckström, Per. Le Grotesque dans l’œuvre d’Henri Michaux. Qui cache son fou, meurt sans voix, Paris: L’Harmattan, 2007.
• Bowie, Malcolm. Henri Michaux: A Study of his Literary Works. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973.
• C L Campos, "Michaux, Henri" in Anthony Thorlby (ed). The Penguin Companion to Literature. Penguin Books. 1969. Volume 2 (European Literature). Page 534.
• Conoley, Gillian (translator). Thousand Times Broken: Three Books. City Lights, 2014.
• Ellmann, Richard (translator). Selected writings: The space within. New York: New Directions, 1968.
• Landes Levi, Louise (translator). Vers La Completude. Le Tirlemont, Amsterdam 1983.
• Landes-Levi, Louise. Toward Totality: Selected Works, 1929–1973. Shivastan, 2006.
• Landes-Levi, Louise. Yantra – As insert to Tantra Song. Siglio, 2011.
• Müller-Yao, Marguerite Hui. Der Einfluß der Kunst der chinesischen Kalligraphie auf die westliche informelle Malerei, Diss. Bonn, Köln 1985. ISBN 3-88375-051-4
• Müller-Yao, Marguerite. "Informelle Malerei und chinesische Kalligrafie", in: Informel, Begegnung und Wandel. (hrsg von Heinz Althöfer, Schriftenreihe des Museums am Ostwall; Bd. 2), Dortmund 2002. ISBN 3-611-01062-6.
• Sieburth, Richard (translator). A Certain Plume. New York Review Books, 2018.
• Wedewer, Rolf. Die Malerei des Informel. Weltverlust und Ich-Behauptung, Deutscher Kunstverlag, München, 2007. ISBN 3-422-06560-1.

External links

• Petri Liukkonen. "Henri Michaux". Books and Writers (kirjasto.sci.fi). Archived from the original on 4 July 2013.
• Reelyredd's Poetry Pages, French text of Michaux poem "Ma Vie" with English translation
• Major paintings of Henri Michaux
• Thousand Times Broken: Three Books by Henri Michaux at City Lights Publishers