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Joseph-Marie Vien ( Montpellier 18 June 1716 – 27 March 1809 Paris); painter. He was the last holder of the post of Premier peintre du Roi, serving from 1789 to 1791.

Gallery

La Douce Mélancolie (1756)

Today is the birthday of George Essex Evans (London 18 June 1863 – 10 November 1909 Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia); poet, journalist, farmer, teacher, and public servant.Evans married Blanche Hopkins. The wedding was described as a very secret affair. A letter from Evans to Dr. Black, whom he sought to perform the service, asks for a quiet ceremony with little fuss in Drayton. They were married on 6 November 1899.

They built their home, “Glenbar” on the Tollbar Road on the eastern slope of the Toowoomba range.

Verse

Dark purple, chased with sudden gloom and glory,
Like waves in wild unrest.
Low-wooded billows and steep summits hoary,
Ridge, slope and mountain crest,
Cease at her feet with faces turned to greet her,
Enthroned, apart, serene,
Above her vassal hills whose voices greet her
The Mountain Queen.

“Poets sing their wild Iambics–

Love and war and gods–

Let us sing of humble women

Fighting fearful odds,

Not where steel and bullets rattle

And the squadrons race,

But the grim unending battle

With the commonplace.”

 

 Today is the birthday of Raymond Radiguet (Saint-Maur, Val-de-Marne 18 June 1903 – 12 December 1923 Paris); novelist and poet whose two novels, Le Diable au corps and Le Bal du comte d’Orgel, were noted for their explicit themes, and unique style and tone.  He associated himself with the Modernist set, befriending Picasso, Max Jacob, Jean Hugo, Juan Gris and especially Jean Cocteau, who became his mentor.  Radiguet had several well-documented relationships with women.  An anecdote told by Ernest Hemingway has an enraged Cocteau charging Radiguet (known in the Parisian literary circles as “Monsieur Bébé” – Mister Baby) with decadence for his tryst with a model: “Bébé est vicieuse. Il aime les femmes.” (“Baby is depraved. He likes women.”) Radiguet, Hemingway implies, employed his sexuality to advance his career, being a writer “who knew how to make his career not only with his pen but with his pencil.”

Radiguet died at age 20 of typhoid fever, which he contracted after a trip he took with Cocteau.  Cocteau, in an interview with The Paris Review stated that Radiguet had told him three days prior to his death that,

“Écoutez, me dit-il le 9 décembre, écoutez une chose terrible. Dans trois jours je vais être fusillé par les soldats de Dieu.” Comme j’étouffais de larmes, que j’inventais des renseignements contradictoires : “Vos renseignements, continua-t-il, sont moins bons que les miens. L’ordre est donné. J’ai entendu l’ordre.”
Plus tard, il dit encore : “Il y a une couleur qui se promène et des gens cachés dans cette couleur.”
Je lui demandai s’il fallait les chasser. Il répondit : “Vous ne pouvez pas les chasser, puisque vous ne voyez pas la couleur.”
Ensuite, il sombra.
Il remuait la bouche, il nous nommait, il posait ses regards avec surprise sur sa mère, sur son père, sur ses mains.
Raymond Radiguet commence. »

In her 1932 memoir, Laughing Torso, British artist Nina Hamnett describes Radiguet’s funeral: “The church was crowded with people. In the pew in front of us was the negro band from the Boeuf sur le Toit. Picasso was there, Brâncuși and so many celebrated people that I cannot remember their names. Radiguet’s death was a terrible shock to everyone. Coco Chanel, the celebrated dressmaker, arranged the funeral. It was most wonderfully done. Cocteau was too ill to come.” … “Cocteau was terribly upset and could not see anyone for weeks afterwards. I wrote to him in February and asked him if I could come and see him. He wrote me a charming letter:
25 fevrier 1924
CHERE NINA
Je suis toujours malade et sans courage.
Telephonez un matin”.
De coeur,
JEAN COCTEAU

Quotes

Le malheur ne s’admet point. Seul, le bonheur semble dû.

Nous croyons être les premiers à ressentir certains troubles, ne sachant pas que l’amour est comme la poésie, et que tous les amants, même les plus médiocres, s’imaginent qu’ils innovent.
Le Diable au corps (1923)