Robert de Montesquiou

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Robert de Montesquiou, portrait by Giovanni Boldini, Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

Marie Joseph Robert Anatole, comte de Montesquiou-Fézensac (March 7, 1855, Paris – December 11, 1921, Menton), was a French aesthete, Symbolist poet, art collector and dandy.

He is reputed to have been the inspiration both for des Esseintes in Joris-Karl Huysmans' (1848-1907) À rebours (1884) and, most famously, for Baron de Charlus in Proust's (1871-1922) À la recherche du temps perdu (1913-1927).[1]

Contents

[edit] Biography

Robert de Montesquiou was a scion of the famous French Montesquiou-Fézensac Family. He was a distant nephew of Charles de Batz-Castelmore d'Artagnan, the model for Dumas' Musketeer. His paternal grandfather was Count Anatole de Montesquiou-Fezensac (1788-1878), Aide-de-camp to Napoleon and grand officer of the Légion d'honneur; his father was Anatole's third son, Thierry, who married Pauline Duroux, an orphan, in 1841. With his wife's dowry, Thierry bought a Charnizay manor, built a mansion in Paris, and was elected Vice-President of the Jockey Club. He was a successful stockbroker who left a substantial fortune. Robert was the last of Count Thierry's children, brothers Gontran and Aymery, and sister Élise.[1] His cousin, Élisabeth, comtesse Greffulhe (1860-1952), was one of Marcel Proust's (1871-1922) models for the duchesse de Guermantes.[2].

He had social relationships and collaborations with many celebrities of the Fin de siècle period, including Alphonse Daudet (1840–1897), Edmond de Goncourt (1822–1896), Eleonora Duse (1858–1924), Sarah Bernhardt (1844-1923), Gabriele d'Annunzio (1863-1938), Anna de Noailles (1876-1933), Marthe Bibesco (1886-1973), Luisa Casati (1881-1957), Jean Cocteau (1889-1963), and Maurice Barrès (1862-1923).[1]

He had a strong influence on Émile Gallé (1846-1904), a glass artist he collaborated with and commissioned major works from, and from whom he received hundreds of adulatory letters.

His portrait Arrangement in Black and Gold: Comte Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac was painted by his close friend, and model for many of his eccentric mannerisms, James Abbott McNeill Whistler in 1891-1892.

The French artist Antonio de La Gandara (1861-1917) produced several portraits of the Comte.

He wrote the verses found in the optional choral parts of Gabriel Fauré's Pavane.

One author provides the following verbal portrait of de Montesquiou: "Tall, black-haired, rouged, Kaiser-moustached, he cackled and screamed in weird attitudes, giggling in high soprano, hiding his little black teeth behind an exquisitely gloved hand -- the poseur absolute. He was said to have slept with Sarah Bernhardt and vomited for a week afterwards."[3]

Montesquiou as caricatured by Sem aka Georges Goursat

[edit] Works

His poetry has been called untranslatable,[4] and was poorly received by critics at the time.[1]

[edit] 'An Adventure'

In his biography Philippe Jullian proposes that Moberly and Jourdain's 'Adventure' in 1901 in the grounds of the Petit Trianon is explained by them stumbling into a rehearsal of one of Montesquiou's Tableaux Vivant, with his friends (one possibly transvestite) dressed in period costume. Dr Joan Evans, who owned the copyright to 'An Adventure' accepted this solution and forbad any further editions.

[edit] Poetry

Note that there is original text related to this article at: French Wikisource

[edit] Essays

Portrait of Marie Joseph Robert Anatole, Comte de Montesquiou-Fezensac. Arrangement in Black and Gold by James McNeill Whistler, 1891/92.

[edit] Novels

[edit] Biographies

[edit] Theatre

[edit] Memoirs

  • Les Pas effacés, 3 vol. (Émile-Paul Frères, 1923; réed. Editions du Sandre, 3 vol)

[edit] Chronology

A chronology of his life can be found at the Université de Napierville.[5]

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b c d Prince Of Aesthetes: Count Robert de Montesquiou (1855-1921), Philippe Jullian, The Viking Press, 1968
  2. ^ Tadié, Jean-Yves, Marcel Proust, Viking, New York, 2000
  3. ^ Sansom, William (1973). Proust and His World. London: Thames and Hudson. pp. 128. ISBN 0-684-13831-X. 
  4. ^ Munhall, Edgar, Whistler and Montesquiou. The Butterfly and the Bat, New York, 1995
  5. ^ Udenap.org

[edit] Further reading

  • Robert de Montesquiou, mécene et dandy, Patrick Chaleyssin, Somogy, 1992
  • Robert de Montesquiou, Les Pas effacés, Suivi d'une étude de Thanh-Vân Ton-That, Editions du Sandre, Paris
  • Elegant Wits and Grand Horizontals, Cornelia Otis Skinner, Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1962

[edit] External Links

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Robert_de_Montesquiou&oldid=477771403"
Personal tools
Namespaces

Variants
Actions
Navigation
Interaction
Toolbox
Print/export
Languages