From the Walls of Factories to the Poetry of the Street: Inscriptions ...

© Caroline Levitt, 2011
Fig. 5. Raoul Dufy, Illustration for Guillaume Apollinaire, „Le Poète assassiné‟ (1916), Paris: Éditions Au Sans
Pareil, 1926. First page of the section „Apothéose‟ (p. 145). Private collection, London (Photo: Caroline Levitt).
Reproduced with the kind permission of Gilbert Boudar. © ADAGP, Paris and DACS, London 2011.
Apollinaire would not be buried in the Panthéon, alongside „les grands hommes‟ (the great men) to
whom France is grateful, although both the inclusion of his name under the list there of „écrivains
morts pour la France‟ (writers killed in France‟s defence) during the First World War as well as Dufy‟s
inclusion of the inscription that runs around the dome of the Panthéon suggest that he is amongst
them. Apollinaire‟s tomb is to be found in the Père Lachaise cemetery, along with the tombs of many
of the great writers and composers, yet is placed not with his contemporary cultural heroes but with
„les étrangers morts pour la patrie‟ (foreigners who died for the country). In place of Picasso‟s
proposed monument, one of Apollinaire‟s own Calligrammes was eventually engraved on the tomb,
designed and made by Serge Férat [Fig. 6].
Ephemera, such as Nadja‟s drawing of the „lovers‟ flower, the product of an initially casual
and then more deliberate attempt to recreate a mental vision over lunch in the country, become the
signs under which, Breton writes, he and Nadja‟s time together should be placed. 45 For both
Apollinaire and Breton, personal, graphic representations of experiences and relationships take the
place of large statuary allegories of great men and battles. If Dufy uses famous sights of Paris to draw
out a personal history, then graffiti such as Lili‟s inscription in the rue Berton are capable of doing the
reverse: through the use of pan-cultural symbols such as the pierced heart, what was commemorative
Papers of Surrealism, Issue 9, Summer 2011 14