Arthur Rimbaud

Arthur Rimbaud, the young Poet

Poetry sounds great but when you want to draw it, you have to translate it in a poetry manner, that's what i've tried with Arthur Rimbaud portrait.

My first version of the poet was done in 2011 and my biogrpahical research wasn't as accurate as my current portraits, making it more abstract. So this 2014 version is based more on his live and thanks to the wikipaedia references, i've pictured up the poet with lot of details. The Arthur Rimbaud picture is available here on my etsy shop and on the blog you will have the full description of the portrait. Here we go !

  The Young poet in Charleville

Charleville Mezieres

 This is his Hometown, the place he grew up and where he was truning back after travelling the World.
The picture is the main square of the french town pictured here.

Teacher congratulating the young winning prize poet

 He was a very talented student in Poetry, litterature, latin, and receive numerous prize for his works. With congratulations of his teacher

escaping his home for Paris

 Rimbaud was driven by this will to travel, always and started to run away when he was a teen, with the big wil lto see the capital.

When he did that without ID, he was arrested in Paris and sent to prison, the country was in state of War (with Prussia).
He did write poems at this time and ask afterwards to his sister to burn them.

Paris, Poems, Verlaine and Hell

The Parnasse

 The Parnasse is a way of life Rimbaud wants to follow, but what is the Parnasse ? This is linked to the Greek Mountain, home of appolo and muses. a place dedicated to the art for art sake. Appolos arrows and Lyre included.

Les vilains bonhommes

The Bad Boys - les vilains bonshommes.

This is the name of the group of males artist and conoisseurs who liked to meet and speak about art and poetry, in Paris.
Verlaine asked to Rimbaud to come and join-in. So i've pictured up Hanri Fantin-Latour picture of the bad boys Verlaine and Rimbaud.

les vilains bonhommes par henri fantin latour

This is during one of theses meeting that Rimbaud mede the first lecture of his poem "le Bateau Ivre"

L'incident Carjat

 "L'incident Carjat" - why Rimbaud pictures are very rare ?

During one of the "vilain bonshommes" meeting, Rimbaud did drunk too much and was very talkative. A guy started to read Poetry and Arthur was thinking it was shit. The problem is that he was thinking loud and started to say shit all the time, disrupting the poor reader.
Then there was a row and Mr Carjat was trying to stop rimbaud to shout "shit", drunk like a fish, Rimbaud grab a sword cane and wound him. No need to say the poor poet wasn't the welcome for the next sessions and Verlaine take arthur boy with him away, to London.
Following this story, Carjat who was the photographer of the "People" of that time, decided to burn all the pictures of Rimbaud, and it explains why there are so few of him remaining.

Romancing Poets - Verlaine Rimbaud

Verlaine + Rimbaud = love

A short time after the Carjat's affair, Verlaine and Rimbaud decide to go abroad the channel and set them up in London.
They live a strong and passionate affair together but after a while, Verlaine needs to go home to see his wife and ask Arthur to let him go.

The young poet don't accept it and follow Verlaine who threat to kill himself if Rimbaud don't go away.
Verlaine finally shot the young boy wich is wounded, Verlaine is sent to Jail then.

A season in Hell

 The love story is over and Rimbaud realise all the things he has done, Then he start to write down a kind of biography into exorcize his thoughts. It is called "une saison en enfer".

One of the last poem he wil lwrite before leaving everything at the age of 20.

Les illuminations

"Les illuminations - Illuminations"

Composed before or after the "saison en enfer" , it still unclear but what is clear is that illumonations is a different approach of writing prose poems.
Theses were written in different places he have been and this is the next part : the poet with the soles of Wind

The poet with the soles of Wind

l'homme aux semelles de vent

 Rimbaud couldn't stay all his life in Charleville Mezieres, he had this inextricate will to go away and discover, so he did !

It's mainly for this reason he was called the poet with soles of Wind.
its the second period of his life : no poetry anymore.

Roaming in Europe

 Travelling in Europe by foot, trying to find the best way to earn money (enrolling in the army then deserting), travelling to Germany, UK, italy, etc...




He was always away and turning beck when he was exhausted or ill, so to communicate with his family and friends, he was writing letters, a lot of them !

 Nomad in the desert

 After visiting the Europe, he decided to go to Africa, and was living here and there earning money with numerous jobs. One of theses was to carry goods accross the desert.

The old guns smuggler

 Another Job was to smuggler old weapons into make Money, but for a final result of 2 years smuggling, the money was rare after for all he suffered. Smuggling is all about dealing with thoses unexpected intermediary who wants their part of the deal.








rimbaud started to feel a big pain in his leg when he was in Africa. He was asking his mother for help into release the pain in his leg with compression stocking.
Death was starting to watch him at this time.

Back to France, severe illness

 His final trip, back to france as he needed heavy surgery for his leg, and a cancer in his body. He died shortly after arriving in Marseille, at the age of 37.

Bye bye the poet

rimbaud picture

Self picture and sending it to the family

Rimbaud did experiment photography and i've put the detail in his eye, inspired by a selfie he did when living in Africa.









The picture of Arthur Rimbaud is available on my shop here.