Narrator 1: In 1955, the French artist and writer Valentine Hugo published an essay about her visit to Constantin Brancusi's studio at the Impasse Ronsin. The following excerpt describes her experience:
Narrator 2: One day, a long time ago, I finally went to ring at that blue door. After turning up a cul-de-sac flanked by large garages, I ended up in the remains of an abandoned garden…on a charming country lane where birdsong and the rustle of leaves filled the air. This seemed all the more unexpected as I was barely 50 meters from the deafening roar of the city.
A man was standing in front of me—it was Brancusi, dressed in his working whites, bathed in sunlight, the ivory tone of large handwoven canvases, a beard of the same color framing the even features of his face, where the eyes smiled more than the mouth.
Inside, everything was calm and seemed to be alive around me. The white Cocks soared up in a blaze of shrieks, full of luminosity, the Endless Columns climbed somberly into space, the Birds flew by in a rush of infinite grace, and the Sorceress, the Caryatid were there, and the large gray marble Fish. Gently, with a precise hand, he removed the thick covers, the silken cocoons, light as a feather, soft as a mother’s fur, releasing the radiant works of polished bronze that were preserved in this way from any blemish.
Narrator 1: This audio was generated with automated voices.
Excerpted from: Valentine Hugo, “Hommage à Brancusi,” Cahiers d’art, 30 (1955): 241–42.