Clovis Trouille

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Camille Clovis Trouille, was born on 24 October 1889, in La Fère, France. He worked as a restorer and decorator of department store mannequins, but is remembered as a Sunday painter who trained at the École des Beaux-Arts of Amiens from 1905 to 1910. He died on 24 September 1975 in Paris.
His service in World War I gave him a lifelong hatred of the military, expressed in his first major painting Remembrance (1931). The painting depicts a pair of wraith-like soldiers clutching white rabbits, an airborne female contortionist throwing a handful of medals, and the whole scene being blessed by a cross-dressing cardinal.

This contempt for the Church as a corrupt institution provided Trouille with the inspiration for decades of pictorial blasphemies:
* Dialogue at the Carmel (1944) shows a skull wearing a crown of thorns being used as an ornament.
* The Mummy shows a mummified woman coming to life as a result of a shaft of light falling on a large bust of André Breton.
* The Magician (1944) has a self-portrait satisfying a group of swooning women with a wave of his magician's wand.
* My Tomb (1947) shows Trouille's tomb as a focal point of corruption and depravity in a graveyard.

* Trouille's other common subjects were sex, as shown in Lust (1959), a portrait of the Marquis de Sade sitting in the foreground of a landscape decorated with a tableau of various perversions, and a "madly egoistic bravado" employed as self-satirism.

* His portrait of a reclining nude shown from behind entitled Oh! Calcutta, Calcutta! - a pun in French - was chosen as the title for the 1969 musical revue. (The French phrase "oh quel cul t'as" translates roughly as "oh what a lovely backside you have".)

After his work was seen by Louis Aragon and Salvador Dalí, Trouille was declared a Surrealist by André Breton - a label Trouille accepted only as a way of gaining exposure, not having any real sympathy with that movement.

The simple style and lurid colouring of Trouille's paintings echo the lithographic posters used in advertising in the first half of the 20th Century.

Channel: Education
Uploaded: May 22, 2008 at 1:10 pm
Author: DistantMirrors

Length: 00:04:54
Rating: 4.86
Views: 3985

Tags: Clovis Trouille surrealism

Video Comments:
transpaint (August 14, 2008 at 10:08 pm)
Dear DistantMirrors.

Thanks for your published info about Clovis Trouille. I like it very much. Still I'm searching for a book about this great artist. If you knew any?

Pstt... Which music is played in your clip?

Greetings from Holland,

Rieks
DistantMirrors (August 23, 2008 at 2:21 pm)
Hello!Thank you for watching the video.
I'm not sure if there is any book about Clovis Trouille.I haven't found any yet...

The music is composed by Thomas Newman.

"Structure and Discipline" - from "American Beauty"

"New Fish" - from "The Shawshank Redemption"

Regards,
Anna
freddycornez (August 4, 2008 at 5:52 pm)
Il n'existe que très peu de monographies de Clovis Trouille et elles sont le plus souvent extrêmement onéreuses. Merci de nous permettre ici de mieux connaître l'oeuvre de cet artiste.
palabraserrantes (June 26, 2008 at 7:20 am)
Onírica belleza.
(No me deja puntuar... :-( )
Me lo llevo a favoritos.
(Thank you!)
frostycold111 (May 29, 2008 at 1:13 am)
very nice...
lilamagritte (May 28, 2008 at 3:54 am)
Hermosa obra. Gracias.
gilcarosio (May 27, 2008 at 2:10 am)
Very interesting..I take to my playlist!!
Thanks :-)
chinesecommunist (May 23, 2008 at 10:00 am)
What is the name of the weird wolf mellon horn work at 00:32?

I can't stop watching this, thank you!
DistantMirrors (May 23, 2008 at 11:00 am)
It's "Coucy les loups"
chinesecommunist (May 23, 2008 at 6:29 am)
Raw!