Spencer Museum of Art

Alfred Jarry Exhibition

About Perhinderion

Perhinderion II, (1896)

Collection R.T., Brest
440 x 325 mm
All images Coyright J. Bocoyran, Brest

• Alfred Jarry
  Cover
• Alfred Jarry
  Back Cover
• Albrecht Dürer
  Sainte Catherine
• Alfred Jarry
  Considération pur servir à l'intelligence de la précedente image
• Félix Fénéon
  Extract of the article "D'art"
• Anonymous
  La douzième planche du Gran Simulacro
• Anonymous
  Le Chemin de Fer
• François Georgin
  la Très Sainte Vierge
• Emile Bernard
  le Christ en croix
• Emile Bernard
  l'Annonciation
• Emile Bernard
  la Sainte Famille
• Alfred Jarry
  Advertisements from Perhinderion I
• Alfred Jarry
  Table of contents and subscription information from Perhinderion I
• Alfred Jarry
  Advertisements
• Alfred Jarry
  Table of contents and subscription information
•  

Jarry's journal, Perhinderion, appeared only in two fascicles, in March and June, 1896, and it is evident that Jarry exhausted his inheritance on this ambitious project. Perhinderion was a lavish elaboration of L'Ymagier's dedication to reproducing old and unusual prints (predominantly woodcuts) and Images d'Épinal. It also includes lithographs by Émile Bernard that are clearly inspired by popular devotional woodcuts. Jarry stated his intentions clearly at the end of the first fascicle in his short article "The First Bell at Mass."

In literally binding together Dürer, Georgin, Münster's Cosmographia, and Bernard (to take the second fascicle as an example), Jarry erodes the barriers that might normally separate an array of complementary opposites or near opposites: renaissance and the fin-de-siècle, intellectual and naïve, famous and anonymous, cherished and ephemeral, valuable and affordable, popular prints and "fine" prints. Finally, in giving a highly evocative reading of Dürer's woodcut, Saint Catherine, a reading that is essentially a symbolist poem that moves from emblems and formal elements to hallucinatory extrapolations, Jarry demonstrates his ability to tap the vitality of an old print and turn it toward a new purpose.