Il pastore al suo padrone, 2022
GPE-0152
The Shepherd to His Master
Lithograph
Fedrigoni Tintoretto
30 x 30 cm
Signed on the recto, bottom right: “Giulio Paolini”
Autograph numbering on the recto, bottom left
35 in Arabic numerals from 1/35 to 35/35
20 in Roman numerals from I/XX to XX/XX
Edizioni l’Obliquo, Brescia
Grafica Sette Srl and Seven Media, Bagnolo Mella (Bresci
The print was produced by Edizioni l’Obliquo, Brescia – directed by Giorgio Bertelli – on the occasion of the publication of the poem Le berger à son maître (1920) by Antonin Artaud, edited by Pasquale Di Palmo. The work marks the thirty years of collaboration between the Turin artist and the Brescia publisher, which began in 1991 with another publication by Antonin Artaud (cf. L’ombelico dei limbi, 1991, GPE-0082). It also inaugurated the triple collaboration between Bertelli and Paolini, which continued with two other graphic editions dedicated to a twentieth-century French writer (cf. Nodo scorsoio, GPE-0155 and Progetto, GPE-0157).
Double-sided white card stock folder, with inside pocket, closed format 30.5 x 30.5 cm; cover with titles in red and black (title, author, curator, publisher). Contains a title-page (on the recto the same as the cover, but with the title in black, on the verso acknowledgements and copyright), a sheet with a poem by Antonin Artaud (in French and in Italian), a sheet with a note by Pasquale di Palmo, the print, and the colophon.
Includes information regarding the printer, edition size, printing technique, type of paper, place and date of printing (Brescia, 1 January 2022). Numbering bottom centre.
• Poem by Antonin Artaud, Le berger à son maître (1920).
• Note by Pasquale di Palmo referring to the poem by Artaud and to the thirty-year collaboration between Paolini and Edizioni l’Obliquo.
Against the background of a night-time sky, the young bubble-blower, borrowed from the painting Les bulles de savon (c. 1734) by Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, is associated with three round shapes arranged so that it appears he has "blown" them himself.
Metaphorically, the protagonist is a stand-in for the author, captured during his favourite pastime: his "blowing" alludes to the becoming of a work of art. At the same time, the dispersion of the "soap bubbles" is also a vanitas referred to the creative act: from one work to another, the author renews the (vain) illusion of shaping an absolute and ineffable dimension, represented by the universe.
Paolini introduced the iconographic theme of the bubble-blower in his work in the early 1990s (cf. among the print editions GPE-0072 and GPE-0079). Indeed, the collage that this print is based on (GPC-2010) dates to 1990: the cosmic atmosphere is what suggested to the publisher to choose this image to accompany in a silent conversation Antonin Artaud's poem included in the portfolio and repeated in the title of the print.
Figure: Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin, Les bulles de savon, c. 1734, oil on canvas, 61 x 63.2 cm, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
| 2026 | Cesena, Galleria del Ridotto, La forma del libro / La forma del mondo, 21 March - 3 May, cited in the checklist of exhibited works p. 82, col. repr. no. 30 p. 81. |
