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| At the age of sixteen, Joseph Ernest Ménétrier, son of a wealthy Parisian baker, becomes an apprentice at Tasset, a renowned engraver of medals. He takes drawing classes and after his military service spends some time at the Académie des Beaux-Arts. At twenty-three years of age, he is hospitalized for "manic excitement" in Ville-Evrard, a hospital for paying patients. For the first two years there, he will be a first class resident, then he will go down to the third class, where food, board and clothing are not as good. | ||
| Joseph Ernest Ménétrier will adopt the pen name of Emile Josome Hodinos. He remains institutionalized for the rest of his life with no diagnosis for his illness. | ||
| He begins drawing after ten years of confinement, several thousand ink and pencil drawings, most of which have disappeared. These drawings are copies of medals with all their details: images, exergues, mottoes and ornaments. The borders are often inscribed with: "republic-peace-war-commerce-industry-navigation-litterature-science-painting- sculpture-architecture-agriculture-horticulture", which correspond to the ideals of the 19th century. He extends his litany with the seven qualities of a good engraver: "moulder-shaper-inventor-composer-draughtsman-reducer-engraver". Hodinos reinvents a whole encyclopedia through his medals. A presentation of his knowledge, a kind of memory, an endless list of words recited in a painful rhapsody. Are also represented ethics: vices and virtues, human anatomy, expression of attitudes and descriptions of clothes or usual objects. A strange hierarchy, almost surrealistic, which can make us smile but which represents for Hodinos order and truth of another world. | ||
| A woman, often naked, or covered with a sheer veil, composed or rather decomposed, cut up and emptied out (feet, legs, and knees), is a recurrent image in his compositions. In addition to his drawings, Hodinos writes L'Histoire générale des Etats européens de 1453 à 1789 and a political dictionary. | ||
| SEE ALSO: REJA (Marcel). L'Art chez les fous,
Mercure de France, Paris, 1907. Publications de la Compagnie de l'Art Brut, fascicule 9, text of Michèle Edelmann, Paris, 1973. Publications de la Collection de l'Art Brut, fascicule 18, text of Lise Maurer, Lausanne, 1994. |
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