''Et le soleil s'endormit sur l'Adriatique'' ( English: ''The sun fell asleep over the Adriatic'') is an oil on canvas painted in

1910 Events January * January 6 – Abé people in the French West Africa colony of Côte d'Ivoire rise against the colonial administration; the rebellion is brutally suppressed by the military. * January 8 – By the Treaty of Punakha, t ...

by the tail of a

donkey The donkey or ass is a domesticated equine. It derives from the African wild ass, ''Equus africanus'', and may be classified either as a subspecies thereof, ''Equus africanus asinus'', or as a separate species, ''Equus asinus''. It was domes ...

and attributed to the fictitious Italian painter Joachim-Raphaël Boronali. This hoax, exhibited at the

Salon des Indépendants Salon may refer to: Common meanings * Beauty salon, a venue for cosmetic treatments * French term for a drawing room A drawing room is a room in a house where visitors may be entertained, and an alternative name for a living room. The name i ...

, was created by writer

Roland Dorgelès Roland Dorgelès (; 15 June 1885 – 18 March 1973) was a French novelist and a member of the Académie Goncourt. Born in Amiens, Somme, under the name Roland Lecavelé (he adopted the pen name Dorgelès to commemorate visits to the spa town of ...

to poke fun at modern painting.

Description

The painting is an oil on canvas, 54 centimetres high and 81 centimetres wide. The upper half is painted in vivid orange, yellow, and red, while the lower half is painted in blue. The painting is bordered by a gilded frame that sets it off to its advantage. The work is signed in the lower right-hand corner with the orange letters “J R BORONALI”.

History

On March 8, 1910, Roland Dorgelès borrowed Lolo, the donkey, from Frédéric Gérard, known as “le père Frédé”, proprietor of the

Lapin agile Lapin Agile is a famous Montmartre cabaret, at 22 Rue des Saules, 18th arrondissement of Paris, France. History The venue existed circa 1860 under the name Au rendez-vous des voleurs, meaning "Where the Thieves Meet". Some twenty years la ...

, a

Montmartre Montmartre ( , , ) is a large hill in Paris's northern 18th arrondissement of Paris, 18th arrondissement. It is high and gives its name to the surrounding district, part of the Rive Droite, Right Bank. Montmartre is primarily known for its a ...

cabaret. In the presence of a

bailiff A bailiff is a manager, overseer or custodian – a legal officer to whom some degree of authority or jurisdiction is given. There are different kinds, and their offices and scope of duties vary. Another official sometimes referred to as a '' ...

, Maître Brionne, Dorgelès had a painting made by Lolo the donkey, to whose tail a paintbrush had been attached. Each time the donkey is given a carrot, it wags its tail frantically, applying paint to the canvas. In Room 22 of the

in 1910, the public, critics and press discovered a work entitled ''Et le soleil s'endormit sur l'Adriatique'', attributed to a young Italian painter no one had ever heard of: Joachim-Raphaël Boronali (“JR. Boronali, peintre né à

Gênes Gênes () was a department of the First French Empire in present-day Italy. It was named after the city of Genoa. It was formed in 1805, when the Ligurian Republic (formerly the Republic of Genoa) was annexed directly to France. Its capital was ...

”). Journalists rename the painting ''Coucher de soleil sur l'Adriatique'' (English: ''Sunset on the Adriatic''). Boronali published his ''Manifesto of Excessivism'', in which he justified his new pictorial movement:

Holà! Great excessive painters, my brothers, holà, sublime and renovating brushes, let's break the ancestral palettes and lay down the great principles of tomorrow's painting. His formula is Excessivism. Excess in everything is a defect, said a donkey. On the contrary, we proclaim that excess in everything is a strength, the only strength... Let's ravage absurd museums. Let's trample on infamous routines. Long live scarlet, purple, coruscating gems, all those swirling, superimposed tones, the true reflection of the sun's sublime prism: Long live excess! All our blood to recolor the sick auroras. Let's warm art in the embrace of our steaming arms!

Art critics are interested in this painting, which is the subject of a variety of comments.

André Salmon André Salmon (4 October 1881, Paris – 12 March 1969, Sanary-sur-Mer) was a French poet, art critic and writer. He was one of the early defenders of Cubism, with Guillaume Apollinaire and Maurice Raynal. Biography André Salmon was born i ...

, who wrote about the event in his memoirs, says he has no recollection of “enthusiastic articles, of the delirium of the critics putting the painter Boronali in the foreground” (). It should also be noted that

Guillaume Apollinaire Guillaume Apollinaire (; ; born Kostrowicki; 26 August 1880 – 9 November 1918) was a French poet, playwright, short story writer, novelist and art critic of Poland, Polish descent. Apollinaire is considered one of the foremost poets of the ...

, a witness to the artistic life of the time, claims that the “‘Boronali’ farce mystified no one”, unlike the hoax perpetrated by (). Apollinaire himself immediately took up this paragraph in a chapter of Le Flâneur des deux rives (). The director of the newspaper

L'Illustration ''L'Illustration'' (; 1843–1944) was a French language, French illustrated weekly newspaper published in Paris. It was founded by Édouard Charton with the first issue published on 4 March 1843, it became the first illustrated newspaper in ...

receives a visit from Dorgelès, who declares that the painting ''Et le soleil s'endormit sur l'Adriatique'' is a hoax. Dorgelès reveals that the painter is a donkey named Lolo, and to prove it, shows a photo of masked jokers drinking behind a donkey with a paintbrush attached to its tail, applying colors to the famous canvas. Dorgelès points out to the director that the name Boronali is an anagram of , the emblematic name for donkeys. Dorgelès explains his motivation to “show the simpletons, the incompetents and the conceited who encumber a large part of the Salon des Indépendants that the work of a donkey, brushed with a tail, is not out of place among their works.” Painter and sculptor André Maillos bought Boronali's painting for 20 louis (400 gold francs, equivalent to €3,500 in 2013). Dorgelès donated this sum to the . In 1953, art collector Paul Bédu bought the painting. Since then, it has been exhibited at the Espace Culturel Paul-Bédu in

Milly-la-Forêt Milly-la-Forêt () is a commune in the Essonne department in the Île-de-France region in northern France. Geology The Forest of Fontainebleau, in the western end of which Milly-la-Forêt lies, is composed of the Oligocene Fontainebleau sand ...

Essonne Essonne () is a department in the southern part of the Île-de-France region in Northern France. It is named after the river Essonne. In 2019, it had a population of 1,301,659, across 194 communes.Normandy Normandy (; or ) is a geographical and cultural region in northwestern Europe, roughly coextensive with the historical Duchy of Normandy. Normandy comprises Normandy (administrative region), mainland Normandy (a part of France) and insular N ...

. He was later found drowned in a pond, which led people at the time to think the animal had committed suicide. In 2016, this painting was exhibited at the Grand Palais in Paris as part of the Carambolages exhibition.

Notes

References

Bibliography

* * * * * {{Cite book , last1=Alix , first1=Cécile , title=Coups de pinceau sur les oiseaux ! , last2=Devos , first2=Xavière , publisher=Elan Vert , year=2015 , isbn=978-2-84455-374-4 , location=Saint-Pierre-des-Corps , language=fr , trans-title=Brush strokes on birds! Hoaxes in France Oil on canvas paintings French painters 1910 paintings Visual arts by animals Individual donkeys