Ars simia naturae

Frédéric Coché

44 pages

Résumé

spoken openly, we didn't really say anything. But, where we encrypted something, and wrote it down in pictures, there we have hidden the truth."This sentence fom the "Rosarium philosophorum" (1550), one of the most popular and widespread alchemistic pictorial works, is not only true for medieval mysticism, but also for this silent, yet very telling comic by Frédéric Coché. In the old book, there's also to be found a picture poem, "Sol and Luna", which Coché is quoting from in several instances."Sol and Luna" deals with "intercourse or copulation", "extraction of the soul or impregnation", and the "jubilee of the soul".Coché is telling about childlike eroticism behind sheltering walls, about wild men and cultivated women, about sex and violence, and about art aping nature.