We all know Satie's work – mostly as the musical background to a thousand TV documentaries. As a composer of Furniture Music (…'not to be listened to') Satie would surely have approved of its widespread use as incidental music today, and could have done with the royalties generated. He died in poverty in Arceuil, a suburb of Paris, in 1925.
This is not to imply he was unpopular in his own time. Right up to his death, he was a leading figure in the Parisian avant-garde and was a significant influence on the development of modern music. He collaborated with many of the most important artistic figures un Paris and was part of a creative network that included Apollinaire, Brancusi, Breton, Cocteau, Debussy, Diaghilev, Leger, Matisse, Picasso, Ravel. The list goes on …
The collaboration he is best remembered for was the ballet Parade, with Jean Cocteau and Pablo Picasso, premièred by Diaghilev's Ballets Russes in 1917. The intrigues and rivalries that beset its development are set out entertainingly in the book under the heading of Wars (referring to conflicting egos as well as the contemporary political context of the First World War). The poet Guillaume Apollinaire, who was also involved in the production, coined a new word, 'Surrealism', when describing it. Here are some scans of the marginalia in that part of the book.
The illustrations, mostly caricatures and doodles, are an important part of the book's charm. They remind us that it was not only a pre-digital age but also a time when photographs were still relatively uncommon. Messages and letters would still be written in longhand and an idea, character or event described in words might easily be illustrated with a thumbnail drawing.
These sometimes slight sketches or marginalia provide us with a playful glimpse of the personalities of the Parisian art world and capture the spirit as well as the style of early modernist drawing. I particularly like this elegant drawing by Picasso of Countess Edith de Beaumont.
The de Beaumonts were members of a Parisian social elite whose patronage, via Salons and other cultural events, provided vital financial support to the avant-garde. The book evokes the colourful milieu in which they circulated, where aristocrats and arrivistes appear as fascinating as the artists they encouraged. One particularly notable character was Misia Edwards. Originally Misia Godebska, Madame Alfred Edwards had previously been Madame Thadée Natanson and would later become Madame José-Maria Sert. She was " a key figure in Parisian society, whose fashions she created and destroyed for half a century. Gifted with unfailing taste and a definite charm, as well as a noteworthy capacity for intrigue, she treated the numerous geniuses she came across with great nonchalance. …Diaghilev, despite being a confirmed misogynist, never made an important decision without consulting her."
To his credit, Satie negotiated this social minefield with intelligence, tact and what has become his defining characteristic, endearing eccentricity. Behind this public persona, the book reveals him as a hard-working musician and enthusiastic collaborator. While clearly enjoying the social round, he needed a private space in which to develop his work. For most of the second half of his life, that space was a cramped room without any facilities in the industrial suburb of Arcueil.
In trying to come to some conclusions about his personality, I was intrigued by this drawing, made by Satie, of a fantastical castle. I read it as signifying his yearning for authority and a status in society he never achieved. It's a yearning that may also account for the grandiose titles he awarded himself in the eccentric religious order he invented, in which he was the only member. This heretical religiosity provided him with a convenient alter-ego he could use to set out his views on art and music and to retaliate against any unfavourable criticism of his work.
In summary, it's a book I would recommend to anyone interested in the history of the origins of Modernist art. A review on the Good Reads website describes it as a book that "will entrance and delight those interested in Parisian cultural life in the early 20th century".
Ornella Volta (1989) Satie Seen Through His Letters
translated by Michael Bullock, introduced by John Cage
London, Marion Boyars
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