Picasso and the Allure of Language was an exhibition at the Yale University Art Gallery a couple years ago. The volume above, Le chant des morts (The Song of the Dead), was on display, and it consists of forty-three poems by Pierre Reverdy. It’s a wonderful example of the combination and juxtaposition of the textual and the visual arts—Reverdy hand-wrote the text and Picasso created accompanying lithograph illustrations. When Picasso received Reverdy’s handwriting, he remarked that it was “‘almost a drawing in itself.’ Consequently, the artist decided against figurative illustrations, which might repeat the curved quality of the poet’s hand, in favor of abstract decorations in the manner of medieval manuscript illumination.”
