hergè exhibition at the pompidou centre, paris


december 20th, 2006 - february 19th, 2007
pompidou centre, paris

every morning, thousands of males put a dab of gel on their
hair at the front and make a little quiff to give it a bit of lift
and character. they might not realise where that look
started from, but they're actually turning themselves
into the big-hearted blonde reporter tintin.

paris has mounted a major retrospective of the comic
work of the belgian artist hergé, the creator of tintin,
who would have celebrated his 100th birthday in 2007.
the centre pompidou has draped an enormous banner
with the image of the checked moon rocket from
‘tintin in space’ on the front of the building, hinting at the
extent of the exhibit inside.
laurent le bon, organizer of the exhibit said ‘it was
important for the centre to show the work of hergé next
to that of matisse or picasso’.
the first part of the exhibition is covering herge’s life and
earliest sketches, including the creation of tintin in the
1930s. the second part features a collection of original
artwork by the artist. 

hergé’s real name was george remi, his artistic pseudonym
comes from his initials backwards and spoken aloud in
french. he was only 21 when he packed the boy and his
dog off on their first assignment to ‘the land of the soviets’
in 1929 in the children's weekly supplement of a brussels
newspaper. printed in black and white it is intersting
to see the start of the character.
over the course of fifty-four years, he would complete
only 23 albums in all and leave a 24th unfinished on his
death in 1983.
(other publications are quick et flupke, jo, zette et jocko ...)

style innovation
hergé has the artistic economy and he perfectly crystallised
what he wanted to say and, as a result, his work never ages.
his ‘ligne claire’, or ‘clear line’, style has been tremendously
influential on european and japanese comics artists and
american newspaper comics artists.
unlike many other illustrators, he drew in lines of almost
unchanging weight and thickness. his characters are simply
and effectively drawn, while his backgrounds occasionally
are quite detailed and often reflect careful research into
real places and landmarks. nothing was shaded.
hergé once said: ‘the notion of shadows, of light and shade,
is a convention... I prefer to stand up for single colours,
which have the advantage of being simpler and more
comprehensible. for a child, tintin's jumper is blue,
completely blue. why should it be light blue on one side,
and dark blue on the other?’

hergé's first masterpiece was ‘the blue lotus’ created in
1934 and the following range from solid to sublime.
during the extensive research hergé carried out for
‘the blue lotus’ album, he became influenced by chinese
and japanese illustrative styles and woodcuts
- works by hokusai and hiroshige.
hergé also declared mark twain an influence.
(among the early albums, ‘tintin in the congo’ might be the
worst, illustrating questionable values of its time
- africans as simpletons, and tintin as the great white man
bringing 'civilization').

the tintin series feature slapstick humour, offset in later
albums by sophisticated satire and political/cultural
commentary. this is why adults also love them.
hergé was recognised by andy warhol and roy lichtenstein
as an important influence on the pop-art movement in the
united states in the 1960s (even though tintin has never
succeeded in america).
even the dalai lama is a comic book fan: he has honored
‘tintin in tibet’ with the light of truth award for bringing the
issue of tibet to wider public attention.
we in designboom are passionate readers since childhood,
and still read the albums forth and back -
the dialogues between tintin, his drunken pal captain haddock
(ten thousand thundering typhoons! ), the delightful deaf
professor calculus and dupont et dupond (thomson and
thompson), the two detectives, which look like
twins with the only discernible difference being the shape
of their moustaches...

the series is one of the most popular european comics of the
20th century, with translations published in over 50 languages
and more than 200 million copies of the books sold.
michael turner and leslie lonsdale-cooper have been translating
hergé’s works into english language for more than 40 years.
‘in your working method, do you usually translate the
entire thing first and then try to fit it within the speech
’originally yes, now no. in fact, it’s [now] frame-by-frame
translations. it’s more convenient to do it that way. one could
translate the whole thing, but as copy-fitting is so crucial
because of the computerisation, it’s something that the translator
effectively has to do, so it’s easier to do it as you go along.
it means that my rate of progress is something like 2 to 3 pages
a day only, simply because the text is being reviewed and
altered because of the demands of space, rather than the
message that you’re trying to put through.
we were given a free hand, by hergé, to translate and adapt
as necessary, because linguistically for a children’s book,
you can’t just translate - the jokes are untranslatable,
some of the text was in brussels patois and had to be turned
into appropriate english -
there were masses of problems that we encountered.
the principle one at the beginning was [that] you’ve got to fit
the text into the boxes, and english and french, as languages,
are not of the same word count.
read more

in 1996, france's eminent biographer pierre assouline wrote
what many supposed would be the definitive biography.
he had never met hergé. he drew mainly on the primary sources
of thousands of the fondation hergé's documents, many of them
sensitive and never made public before. he disclosed that hergé
was allegedly abused within his family as a young boy.
certain family sources suggest that georges had been the victim
of sexual abuse by his uncle charles arthur, ten years his senior,
who also lived in the family house at that time.
in the absence of documents or direct testimonies it is only a
supposition that the repression of such a trauma explains the
sadness which hergé associated with his childhood and might
be the reason why the stories' reject all biological links, and all
forms of sex and sexuality.

read more - ‘discover the world of hergé and tintin’

more related links

the pompidou centre, paris draped with a banner that features the image of
a rocket drawn by hergé

detail of hergé's rocket.



‘the adventures of tintin’ present a number of well realised characters
in distinctive settings. the series has continued as a favourite of readers
and critics alike for over 70 years.

tintin and his astute dog milou (or snowy)

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