Unknown [Fleury?], Prado. (c. 1840) Lithograph.
This intriguing print is in certain ways quite explicit in its concerns,
in other ways very mysterious. On the one hand, the print brings
together a great deal of iconography specific to underground, radical
Romanticism to present a tableau of the theory of radical friendship
known in Romanticist theory as camaraderie: in the centre we find a
cénacle of bearded, long-haired young men in flowing, flamboyant
clothing--all expressions of Romanticist subculture--gathered together
toasting in a moment of boisterous camaraderie. The time period is
vague, and seems to combine elements of the 19th Century with echoes of
the Middle Ages (the scholar on the right with an alembic) and
swash-buckling Renaissance (the loose-fitting shirt and chap with the
van-dyke) in Romanticist fashion. Behind them, music is being played,
while in the corner are an artist's palette, books, a globe, a written
manuscript, and a pipe (another signifier of Romanticist affiliation).
There is also a sword, leading in the other corner to a battle scene--while by no means incongruous with some strains of Romanticism, it is difficult to tell whether this is meant to connect Romanticism to revolution, to neo-Napoleonic nationalism, or simply to a life of adventure (culture as the new 'battleground' in which glory could be won). And then there is the huge, enigmatic word: PRADO. Clearly, this word--simply "field" or "plain" in Spanish and Portugese--communicated something to its intended audience in a way that was clear, immediate, and visceral to its intended audience of French proto-bohemians, enough to emblazon across the print without further explanation; this meaning has been lost. It is true that the Romantics had an affinity for Spanish culture, and I'm reminded of the red tickets distributed to members of the underground "Romanticist Army" just before the "Battle of Hernani," which were printed with nothing but the Spanish word for iron: "HIERRO," which thus became a French Romanticist catch-phrase.
It would seem that there was an 'artistic' café in Paris in the 1840s called the Prado, which may well have been an important venue in the emerging Bohemian subculture; in Henry Murger's Roman-à-clef on Bohemian Paris Vie de Bohême, the protagonist, after comparing himself to a character in a novel by the Frenetic Romanticist Alphonse Karr (editor of Les Geupes, in this archive), takes refuge with some spiked punch in a café called the Prado; the café appears only in that scene, and is named in passing as if the reader would already know what it is; the place is also mentioned in 1855 in W.B. Jerrold's book on 'Imperial Paris' (parts of which were written earlier). The stories in Murger's book were originally published in journals from 1845 until 1849, when they were turned into a blockbuster play (later adapted by Verdi) two years later published in book form, and 'Bohemia' as a cultural form gained wide-spread recognition. Certainly, the print feels like a document of the transition from Avant-Romanticism to Bohemianism; though the traces of medievalism and the military association are more typical of the earlier movement than post-Murger Bohemianism, the symbols of actual creative work have been shoved to the margins, putting cheerful carousing at centre-stage as appropriate to later conceptions of Bohemia.
These mysteries are made more difficult by the impossibility of assigning the print a definitive date or author. The seller considered it French, circa 1840, and everything about the style and execution confirm that analysis, but it remains approximate. The signature is largely obscured; the seller suggested "Fleury" which seems right, and there are a number of obscure artists by the name who could potentially have drawn it; but there is scarcely any information on them online, none of which information is particularly encouraging, and none match what seem to be the initial "A" or possibly "A.A." or some other superimposed monogram that precede it. It is likely that, whomever they were, they were a member of a late Romanticist/early Bohemian cénacle that met at a Café called the Prado, and that the characters represented were his friends and collaborators. Beyond that, we await further discoveries to supply a missing clue.
There is also a sword, leading in the other corner to a battle scene--while by no means incongruous with some strains of Romanticism, it is difficult to tell whether this is meant to connect Romanticism to revolution, to neo-Napoleonic nationalism, or simply to a life of adventure (culture as the new 'battleground' in which glory could be won). And then there is the huge, enigmatic word: PRADO. Clearly, this word--simply "field" or "plain" in Spanish and Portugese--communicated something to its intended audience in a way that was clear, immediate, and visceral to its intended audience of French proto-bohemians, enough to emblazon across the print without further explanation; this meaning has been lost. It is true that the Romantics had an affinity for Spanish culture, and I'm reminded of the red tickets distributed to members of the underground "Romanticist Army" just before the "Battle of Hernani," which were printed with nothing but the Spanish word for iron: "HIERRO," which thus became a French Romanticist catch-phrase.
It would seem that there was an 'artistic' café in Paris in the 1840s called the Prado, which may well have been an important venue in the emerging Bohemian subculture; in Henry Murger's Roman-à-clef on Bohemian Paris Vie de Bohême, the protagonist, after comparing himself to a character in a novel by the Frenetic Romanticist Alphonse Karr (editor of Les Geupes, in this archive), takes refuge with some spiked punch in a café called the Prado; the café appears only in that scene, and is named in passing as if the reader would already know what it is; the place is also mentioned in 1855 in W.B. Jerrold's book on 'Imperial Paris' (parts of which were written earlier). The stories in Murger's book were originally published in journals from 1845 until 1849, when they were turned into a blockbuster play (later adapted by Verdi) two years later published in book form, and 'Bohemia' as a cultural form gained wide-spread recognition. Certainly, the print feels like a document of the transition from Avant-Romanticism to Bohemianism; though the traces of medievalism and the military association are more typical of the earlier movement than post-Murger Bohemianism, the symbols of actual creative work have been shoved to the margins, putting cheerful carousing at centre-stage as appropriate to later conceptions of Bohemia.
These mysteries are made more difficult by the impossibility of assigning the print a definitive date or author. The seller considered it French, circa 1840, and everything about the style and execution confirm that analysis, but it remains approximate. The signature is largely obscured; the seller suggested "Fleury" which seems right, and there are a number of obscure artists by the name who could potentially have drawn it; but there is scarcely any information on them online, none of which information is particularly encouraging, and none match what seem to be the initial "A" or possibly "A.A." or some other superimposed monogram that precede it. It is likely that, whomever they were, they were a member of a late Romanticist/early Bohemian cénacle that met at a Café called the Prado, and that the characters represented were his friends and collaborators. Beyond that, we await further discoveries to supply a missing clue.
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