Le Soleil des eaux

Le Soleil des eaux inaugurated the important and distinctive collaboration between René Char and Georges Braque. The project arose shortly after the two men met at an exhibition of contemporary paintings and sculptures organized by Christian and Yvonne Zervos at the Palais des Papes in Avignon. The idea was to illustrate one of the few texts by Char suited to dramatic staging — a project that was, in fact, originally conceived for the cinema.

Char wrote the screenplay between August and October 1946. It tells the story of a community of fishermen in Provence, in the Comtat Venaissin, at the beginning of the century: the building of a factory on the banks of the river Crillone, which runs through the village of Saint-Laurent, provokes a revolt among the trout and eel fishermen whose river is polluted by chlorine discharge from the paper mill. The intended question was how to reconcile rural happiness with destructive industry. Filming was to take place at L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, with many extras recruited locally. Char described it as “a film whose ambition is to make one forget that it is a film, that is to say, something more than food for the eyes: proof for the heart,” a project he hoped to share with Jean Vilar, whom he had considered for a role and to whom he wrote on 12 December: “It is urgent that I see you […] I have written the screenplay and dialogue for a film that will be shot in the spring under serious conditions.” Yvonne Zervos, director of the Cahiers d’art gallery, was approached to finance the project, and a contract was signed with Serge Sandberg’s Sifdac company in February 1947. Having no directing experience, Char called on four successive directors, whom he intended to “supervise.” But in the face of difficult conditions — including the major strike of 1947 — the financial backers withdrew, and only a few scenes were ever filmed.

Char then decided to continue the project for the stage: the work was first performed in 1948 by Radiodiffusion française, with music by Pierre Boulez and direction by Alain Trutat.

Char’s meeting with Braque the following year gave rise to an illustrated book edition. It was for this book that Braque first introduced his celebrated motif of the open bird, depicted here on three plates in black and on the color frontispiece. The few texts Char had written for the stage version were later collected under the title Trois coups sous les arbres.

A fine copy, of fine provenance, beautifully bound by Danielle Mitterrand, who had trained in bookbinding in the workshop of Henri Mercher.