2025 № 4 (55)

UDC 769.2

BBC 85.103(3)

DOI: 10.51678/2226-0072-2025-4-208-239

For cit.: Steppe E.M. Nine Songs by Claude Terrasse for Répertoire des Pantins: The Innovation and Significance of Pierre Bonnard’s Musical Illustration. Hudozhestvennaya kul’tura [Art & Culture Studies], 2025,
no. 4, pp. 208–239. https://doi.org/10.51678/2226-0072-2025-4-208-239. (In Russian) 

Steppe Ekaterina M. 

2nd-year Master’s Student, Faculty of Art History, Russian State University for the Humanities, 6 Miusskaya Sq., Moscow, 125047, Russia
https://orcid.org/0009-0009-7509-2812

birds-of-dorian@yandex.ru 

Nine Songs by Claude Terrasse for Répertoire des Pantins: The Innovation and Significance of Pierre Bonnard’s Musical Illustration

Abstract. The collection of songs Répertoire des Pantins published in 1898 was a result of close collaboration of such prominent figures as poet and dramaturge Alfred Jarry, artist Pierre Bonnard, poet Franc-Nohain, and composer Claude Terrasse. The collection consists of nine music pieces, three of which are connected with the hieratic Ubu Roi by Alfred Jarry. While the play by Jarry is studied exhaustively, the rest six songs with lyrics by Franc-Nohain to the music by Terrasse have undeservingly remained in the background and are almost not performed. 

The interest in collaboration of Franc-Nohain and Terrasse is primarily related to the artistic activity of Pierre Bonnard in the Théâtre des Pantins. The artist, who was involved in set design and making marionettes for the puppet theatre, also created covers for music sheets composed by Terrasse. Six Bonnard’s litoghraphies for the songs from Répertoire des Pantins are of great significance in terms of the artist’s understudied musical illustration, as well as due to the under-researched subject of musical illustration in art theory as a complex phenomenon based on the interaction of the pictorial and music material. The aim of the research is to evaluate the novelty of Pierre Bonnard’s graphic approach to musical illustration on the example of the Répertoire des Pantins collection of songs. Detailed exploration of the covers allows us to get deep into the artist’s premise, to expose new particularities of his artistic method, to trace the influence of poetic and music contents on the composition of the drawings, on prioritizing of the elements in the compositions, and even on the choice of characters. Moreover, the revival of the repertoire is highly important from the perspective of its dialogue with the contemporaneity. The music, lyrics, and drawings of Répertoire des Pantins separately and as a whole are so remarkable that, on the one hand, they are of interest for musical illustration of the 21st century and, on the other hand, they remind about authenticity and tradition of the French art at the turn of the 20th century. 

Keywords: Pierre Bonnard, postimpressionism, the Nabis, graphic art, musical illustration, theatre, puppet theatre, history and theory of music

The author would like to express her gratitude to her academic supervisor Elena V. Klyushina, PhD (in Art History), for assistance in preparing this study. 

References:

Kuzovchikova T.I. Teatral’nye ehksperimenty Monmartra na rubezhe XIX–XX vekov [Theatrical Experiments of Montmartre at the Turn of the 19th and 20th Centuries]. St. Petersburg, Izdatel’skii Dom “Giperion” Publ., 2024. 224 p. (In Russian)

Martynova D.O. “Zhizn’ v kafe-kontserte: izuchenie nravov” 1894 goda E. Uvrara i L. Uri: rol’ muzyki i audiovizualizatsii vo frantsuzskoi industrii zrelishch vtoroi poloviny XIX veka [“Life in a Café-concert: A Study of Manners”, 1894, by E. Ouvrard and L. Ouri: The Role of Music and Audiovisualizations in the French Entertainment Industry of the Second Half of the 19th Century]. Hudozhestvennaya kul’tura [Art & Culture Studies], 2025, no. 1, pp. 288–313 https://doi.org/10.51678/2226-0072-2025-1-288-313. (In Russian)

Bonnard P., Jarry A., Terrasse C. Répertoire des Pantins. Brochures 1–9. Paris: Mercure de France, 1898. 74 p. Available at: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b52000430q (accessed 30.01.2025).

Cahn I. Bonnard / Vuillard. Les affinités électives. Bonnard-Vuillard: La donation Zeïneb et Jean-Pierre Marcie-Rivière, textes G. Cogeval, I. Cahn, L. Jarbouai. Paris, Musee d’Orsay, Flammarion, 2010, pp. 73–82.

Catalogue générale de la librairie française, eds. O.H. Lorenz, D. Jordell. Periode de 1900 A1905. Paris, Lorenz, 1908. Reprinted with the permission of Librairie Hachette, Paris. Nendeln, Kraus Reprint LTD, 1968. Vol. 18. 24 p. Available at: https://archive.org/details/catalogue-general-librairie-fr_1900-1905_18_a-h (accessed 27.02.2025).

Coombes R. Maurice Denis’s The History of Music: Allegorising Cultural Tradition in Early Twentieth-Century France. Belonging, Detachment and the Representation of Musical Identities in Visual Culture, eds. A. Baldassarre, A. Teniswood-Harvey. Wien, Hollitzer Verlag, 2023, pp. 395–421.

Coombes R. The Sounding Body in the Musical Illustrations of Maurice Denis and Pierre Bonnard. Music in Art: International Journal for Music Iconography, 2023, vol. 48, pp. 147–172.

Dubbelboer M. ‘Ubusing’ Culture: Alfred Jarry’s Subversive Poetics in the Almanachs du Père Ubu. Groningen, University of Groningen, 2009. 233 p. Available at: https://pure.rug.nl/ws/portalfiles/portal/14647881/14complete.pdf (accessed 27.02.2025).

Jarry A. Adventures in ‘Pataphysics. Collected works of Alfred Jarry, eds. A. Brotchie, P. Edwards. Vol. 1. London, Atlas Press, 2001. 334 p.

Jarry A., Terrasse C. Ubu Roi: texte et musique (Fac-simile autographique). Paris, Mercury de France, 1897. 220 p. Available at: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k1281020x (accessed 27.02.2025).

LaBelle M.M. Alfred Jarry, Nihilism and the Theater of the Absurd. New York, New York University Press, 1980. 194 p.

Legrand M.É., dit Franc-Nohain. Poème autographe signé intitulé “La complainte de Monsieur Benoît” et dédié à Coquelin Cadet. 1898. Librairie Le Feu Follet — Edition-Originale.com. Available at: https://m.edition-originale.com/en/literature/poetry/franc-nohain-poeme-autographe-signe-intitule-la-1898-83429 (accessed 27.02.2025).

Ludwig S. Jane Avril (1893): Die Inversion der Tänzerinfotografie. Ludwig S. Tanzbilder Und Bildbewegungen: Toulouse-Lautrecs Plakate, Fotografische Porträts Und Die Darstellung von Bewegung Im Bild. Bielefeld, Verlag, 2021, ss. 73–118.

Murray G.B. Music Illustration in the Circle of Bonnard: From Naturalism to Symbolism. Prints Abound: Paris in the 1890s: From the Collections of Virginia and Ira Jackson and the National Gallery of Art, P.D. Cate, G.B. Murray, R. Thomson. Washington, National Gallery of Art, London, Lund Humphries, 2000, pp. 60–83.

Roob A. The History of Press Graphics. 1819–1921. Taschen, 2023. 604 p.

The Nabis and the Parisian Avant-garde: Catalogue of an Exhibition at the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum, ed. P.E. Boyer. New Brunswick, Rutgers University Press, Zimmerli Art Museum, 1988. 197 p.

The Spirit on Montmartre: Cabarets, Humor and the Avant Garde, 1875–1905, eds. F.D. Cate, M. Shaw. New Brunswick, Rutgers University Press, Zimmerli Art Museum, 1996. 249 p.

Received 19.05.2025 

Accepted 16.08.2025