Cock and Harlequin - Grimoire.Social

57 pages

English language

Published 1921 by Egoist Press.

OCLC Number:: 476730526

(1 review)

The French writer and filmmaker Jean Cocteau (1889-1963) was a leading figure in ;'esprit nouveau, "the new spirit" that emerged in French art and culture at the close of World War I. Erik Satie's 1917 ballet Parade, for which Cocteau supplied the story, Picasso the costumes and sets, and Leonid Massine the choreography, played a major role in defining that spirit; and Cocteau's essay "Cock and Harlequin," published in 1918, was written while still under the influence of this collaboration. To replace the intuitive, subjective, and individualistic esthetic of Romanticism, which in his view was equally present in the music of both Wagner and Debussy, Cocteau argues for something more in tune with his idea of French culture: a simpler and more popular, "everyday" music, inspired by the music hall, cabaret, cafe concert, and circus. Cocteau's aphoristic writing style—curt, crisp, hard-edged, and without transition—perfectly mirrors that new esthetic, so strikingly …

The French writer and filmmaker Jean Cocteau (1889-1963) was a leading figure in ;'esprit nouveau, "the new spirit" that emerged in French art and culture at the close of World War I. Erik Satie's 1917 ballet Parade, for which Cocteau supplied the story, Picasso the costumes and sets, and Leonid Massine the choreography, played a major role in defining that spirit; and Cocteau's essay "Cock and Harlequin," published in 1918, was written while still under the influence of this collaboration. To replace the intuitive, subjective, and individualistic esthetic of Romanticism, which in his view was equally present in the music of both Wagner and Debussy, Cocteau argues for something more in tune with his idea of French culture: a simpler and more popular, "everyday" music, inspired by the music hall, cabaret, cafe concert, and circus. Cocteau's aphoristic writing style—curt, crisp, hard-edged, and without transition—perfectly mirrors that new esthetic, so strikingly different from the one expressed by Schoenberg in the previous entry.

1 edition

gesang reviewed Cock and Harlequin by Jean Cocteau

A Peek into the French Spirit

4 stars

I have always admired Jean Cocteau's church murals. While his murals might look like those pictures appearing on the cover of the notebooks of high-school girls' from bourgeois families, when contrasting to those heavy and 'sublime' Romanticist or Baroque paintings that have lost the meaning intrinsitc to the style due to the fading of the cultural climate where they blossomed, the lightness and down-to-earthiness in the aesthetics of his murals renders them ethereal and pristine, calm and at the same time full of life forces.

They are rational, objective and restraint in the French sense: refined, fresh and aristocratic, crisp, dry and sparkling, with a strangely vintage feel. Unsurprisingly but at the same time surprisingly, Cocteau refers to Francois Couperin's titles for his works to indicate what's hidden behind ridiculous titles of Erik Satie: free of sentimentalism and pretentiousness, a sense of refineness, dignity that manifests itself through the even, …

I have always admired Jean Cocteau's church murals. While his murals might look like those pictures appearing on the cover of the notebooks of high-school girls' from bourgeois families, when contrasting to those heavy and 'sublime' Romanticist or Baroque paintings that have lost the meaning intrinsitc to the style due to the fading of the cultural climate where they blossomed, the lightness and down-to-earthiness in the aesthetics of his murals renders them ethereal and pristine, calm and at the same time full of life forces.

They are rational, objective and restraint in the French sense: refined, fresh and aristocratic, crisp, dry and sparkling, with a strangely vintage feel. Unsurprisingly but at the same time surprisingly, Cocteau refers to Francois Couperin's titles for his works to indicate what's hidden behind ridiculous titles of Erik Satie: free of sentimentalism and pretentiousness, a sense of refineness, dignity that manifests itself through the even, harmonious proportion, without overusing precious titles to show off one's taste like some false connoisseur in a salon. "Down-to-earth" and "everyday" are missleading words to really describe the aesthetics that Jean Cocteau is promoting, what is crucial being the notion of truth, of honesty.

It is a form of "Gallic masculinity", much similar to the seemingly-silly masculinity in the music of the Village People but endowed with elegance and control, something Mozartian, in the spirit of Jean Simeon Chardin. Only a highly refined culture with a long aristocratic tradition can perpetuate this sort of aesthetics without practicing atavism and reverting to neo-classicism and such.

Subjects

Art Criticism
Literary Criticism
Literature
Aesthetics