Leonor Fini - This novella’s ambiguous narrator sets off for the isolated locale of Rogomelec—where a crumbling monastery serves as a sanatorium and offers a cure involving a diet of plants and flowers—and moves through a waking dream involving strangely scented monks, vibratory concerts in a cavernous ossuary, and ritualist pomp with costumes of octopi and shining beetles

Leonor Fini, Rogomelec, Trans. by William

Kulik and Serena Skwersky, Wakefield Press, 

2020.

‘Originally published in French in 1979, Rogomelec was the third of Leonor Fini’s novels. All the qualities of the paintings for which she is famed can be found in it: an undermining of patriarchy, the ambiguities of gender and the slipperiness of desire, along with darker hints of cruelty and the voluptuousness of fear. This novella’s ambiguous narrator sets off for the isolated locale of Rogomelec—where a crumbling monastery serves as a sanatorium and offers a cure involving a diet of plants and flowers—and moves through a waking dream involving strangely scented monks, vibratory concerts in a cavernous ossuary, and ritualist pomp with costumes of octopi and shining beetles. As the days unfold, the narrator discovers that the “the celebration of the king” is approaching, the events of which will lead to a shocking discovery in Rogomelec’s Gothic ruins. This first English translation includes 14 drawings by Fini that accompanied the novella’s original publication.

‘Born in Argentina and raised in Italy, Leonor Fini (1907–1996), concluded a rebellious youth with a move to Paris and a career in painting. Her six decades of work as artist, illustrator, designer, and author bore close ties to the Surrealist movement, but though the Surrealists saw her as one of them, she herself never identified as a Surrealist. Rejecting the role of muse, her work focused on portrayals of women as subjects with desire as opposed to objects of desire, and was groundbreaking in its explorations of mythology, androgyny, death, and life as Mannerist theater.’

‘During her teenage years, Fini suffered from rheumatic conjunctivitis, which forced her to have her eyes bandaged and to live in total darkness for two months. She later recalls that this experience really helped to develop her imagination and to conceive complex visual imagery in her mind. The need to bandage her eyes may also have also inspired a later love of being masked. By the age of seventeen, Fini was already exhibiting her portraits in Trieste, and frequenting the artistic and literary circles of the town, where she was generally considered highly intelligent (she had read Freud before she turned sixteen) and sensitive.

‘In 1931, she moved briefly to Milan and then to Paris where she became acquainted with Carlos Carrà and Giorgio de Chirico; both became profound influences on the aspiring young artist. By this point, Fini was an ambitious 24 year old, with, as art critic Sarah Kent writes, “a gift for friendship – people loved her warmth, intelligence, and beauty”. It was at this time that she met Max Ernst, who became her lover and introduced her to the Surrealists, including Man Ray, Salvador Dalí, and Henri Cartier-Bresson along with many other painters and writers of the group.

‘Fini quickly became an integral part of the Parisian art scene and social circles. She became known for her eccentricity, flamboyant personality, and particularly theatrical ways of dressing. Art critic Sarah Kent says, “She would dye her hair blue, orange, red or gold and attend private views and parties dressed as a man, or wearing nothing but white boots and a cape of white feathers”. During this time, she was also exhibiting her work in Parisian art galleries – one of her first exhibitions was at Christian Dior’s gallery that was run by Dior before he became an acclaimed fashion designer.

‘Throughout this time, Fini also worked as an accomplished portraitist (painting portraits of many celebrities and visitors to Paris, and especially of her friends including writer Jean Genet, actress Maria Casarès, ballerina Margot Fonteyn, and the socialite Hélène Rochas) as well as an illustrator, illustrating Edgar Allan Poe and Shakespeare, and often donating her drawings to new emerging writers. Besides being generous, she was talented, glamorous, and often perceived as being profoundly controversial. Art critic Catherine Styles McLeod describes her as “magnificent, perturbing, mocking enigmatic, terrible, and compassionate”. Art critic Joseph Nechvatal further enhances her colorful existence in that he writes, “her wild lifestyle, open bisexuality, and infamous ménage à trois relationships shocked even the Parisian café society”.’ — The Art Story

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/49183298-rogomelec