Benjamin Lacombe: "We live between Bambi and Dorian Gray"

Benjamin Lacombe was 12 or 13 years old when he first read Oscar Wilde 's The Picture of Dorian Gray . It was part of his high school textbook in Paris, and illustrating it became a dream that, more than 30 years later, he realized.

In fact, Lacombe, a highly acclaimed illustrator and author of some 40 works, came to present this fulfilled dream at the Book Fair and will sign copies at the Edelvives stand (Yellow Pavilion at La Rural) today, May 1, starting at 5 p.m.

Lacombe (1982) often says that he started drawing as a child, but unlike most, he never stopped. He studied at the School of Decorative Arts in Paris and, at 19, published a comic. His thesis project, Cherry Guinda , became his first book for children in 2006. He went on to produce works for that audience, for young people and adults alike. Little Red Riding Hood . A Magnificent Version of Alice in Wonderland . Macabre Tales , by Edgar Allan Poe . The Hunchback of Notre Dame , by Victor Hugo .

His influences range from Quattrocento and Pre-Raphaelite painting to Tim Burton , and Fritz Lang's film Metropolis . He combines beauty, strangeness (sometimes even the eerie), and a certain vague sadness and melancholy.

Lacombe also often says that to illustrate is to illuminate . That's what she did with Bambi (which she saw as a work that denounced the imminence of Nazism in Europe in 1923), The Little Mermaid (the tale by Danish author Hans Christian Andersen that she interpreted as a queer universe), and Tales of Samurai Women , written by Sébastien Perez (born in Beauvais in 1975), her partner, with whom she has been working for over 15 years.

– What changed from your first reading of The Picture of Dorian Gray to the reading you did for this play?

–It was a rediscovery of the book, because this edition has added the parts that were censored . So it was truly a new reading. Very difficult fragments were added, which allow you to better understand the story. The new reading was also a way to learn about the history of the book, that is, the history of history . And also, to return to Oscar Wilde's love story, his life, his tragedies… This book has something premonitory for Wilde.

–Oscar Wilde imagines his Dorian Gray as blond, with his ringlets, sublime. And then, when he meets Alfred Douglas (his great love), he says that he is the embodiment of his literary creation. In reality, the book is a story of multiple loves. Dorian's love story with his reflection in the portrait. Basil Hallward's (the painter in Wilde's book) love story with Dorian himself and with his work about Dorian. That same painting is what allows him to discover himself and, at the same time, what leads him to his downfall. The painting that elevates him also shows Dorian as the "monster" he is. All of this is a bit like what happens to Oscar Wilde during his love affair with Alfred Douglas: he becomes a social outcast, goes to trial, goes to jail, survives, and emerges almost directly to meet his end.

– What is unique about The Picture of Dorian Gray among your works?

–It deals with the beautiful and the terrible, the accepted and the condemned. But it's a unique book for me. First, because it's about a male character, and a male character who acts almost like a femme fatale. Furthermore, beyond showing you love stories and even the tragedy of self-love, it speaks to art, to the artist , and to his relationship with his work. And in that sense, it feels very close to me.

– What do you emphasize regarding art?

–The reflection that Oscar Wilde presents. He does it first in the preface, when, well, he's an artist who speaks to us about art, he speaks to us about art with certainty, he speaks to us about beauty. But he seems to be an artist who has lived a short time. And then everything that happens to him happens to him: love, heartbreak, social rejection, trial, prison, etc. Then he appears writing De profundis in prison. He's a new artist, another, an artist who lived, suffered, and ultimately everything, including art, is a big question mark.

– Was that your big challenge in illustrating The Picture of Dorian Gray ?

–It was a challenge to represent an extraordinary painting. And for that painting, in turn, to undergo movements throughout the story. And how do you depict something unrealistically beautiful ? For me, these were the big questions that had to be asked.

The answers to these questions are technical, says Lacombe. And he takes a copy of the book and shows how his portrait of Dorian Gray subtly transforms as he lifts layers of light, silky-smooth tracing paper . How, as the pages turn, the wrinkles on Dorian's face appear until it turns into darkness. Into nothing?

How the use of varnish makes some figures appear or disappear depending on how the light hits them.

How the almost abstract stains, in the style of Impressionist painting , are much more than an allusion to the movement almost contemporaneous with the first publication of The Picture of Dorian Gray in 1890. Or to the atmosphere of that time . “The Second Industrial Revolution, Victorian morality, a world in the making, with loose, ill-defined boundaries ,” as Lacombe says.

And he explains: “If you look at a fragment of a leaf from the Bambi forest I illustrated, you recognize the forest,” he explains. “But in the case of the portrait of Dorian, if you look at the spots in detail, you only see a few brushstrokes. The representations emerge when you look at the entire composition. Because what this is about is how feelings and sensations play together. That's what I wanted to convey in the book.”

There's more. How many shades of black do you know? The cover of Benjamin Lacombe 's The Picture of Dorian Gray reveals varieties of black. Again, for more reasons than one.

The first reason is that the work inaugurates the Mariposa Negra collection, dedicated to investigating images and forms of representation, which Lacombe directs at the French publishing house Gallimard .

The second is a perfect metaphor for this work created by Lacombe himself: “I wanted my portrait of Dorian Gray to literally be a black pearl .”

– What does The Picture of Dorian Gray say about today’s world?

–We live in Dorian's world, in the sense that this is an ultra-narcissistic society . Dorian Gray, what was it? The mask of beauty? Of immaculate beauty? He had everything. He was rich, he was handsome, he was young. And he was a monster. Today we have the monsters of social media with virtual masks. We know they show a life that has nothing to do with reality. We know that what they show is calculated down to the millimeter and that it always feeds the need for more money, more image, more likes. This is a society of image, a society of appearances, a society of falsehood . It's full of people who modify their bodies with cosmetic surgery. The image is a mask both physical and social. And in turn, this leads to the schizophrenia we are forced to live with when we choose something of that nature. Living like this is a bit like what happens to Dorian Gray. There comes a time when he can't stand it anymore.

– In addition to supporting your interpretations, does the role of documentation in your work have to do with an interest in valuing the Enlightenment?

–If I don't know, if I don't understand, I can't give depth to what I do. Knowledge effectively allows for that, because being informed, having researched, emancipates, and that emancipation allows for further explorations and new readings. I always seek to offer something more.

– What do you think about Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the idea that it will blur the lines between fantasy and reality?

Artificial Intelligence brings questions and problems. I'm convinced it must be regulated because it feeds on what's already been done, on our works, our translations, our texts. And in particular, authors, the entire humanity it generates, receives neither credit nor money. So, the need for regulation is urgent. As a creative aid, AI doesn't remove limits. On the contrary. It offers you rehashes that limit. Now, can it be a tool? A resource to be used? Yes. AI could be used at the draft level, for example, in the first step of a project.

Eldelvives explains that Lafcadio Hearn was recognized as the first great Japanologist of Western literature for his ghost stories and popular books. Thanks to his Japanese wife, he learned about traditional tales, which he transformed into new stories after rewriting them.

Benjamin Lacombe worked on these texts and has published several volumes on the traditions of that country as no one had ever represented them.

Meanwhile , A History of Samurai Women , the work written by Perez and illustrated by Lacombe, was advised by Japanese culture specialist Matthias Hayek.

In the absence of bibliography on the subject, they created works based on historical figures and legends.

– What was it like working together and in a foreign universe?

Sebastián Pérez: Benjamin was there from the beginning of this series on Japan, and I joined with the samurai. It was a work of research and also of discovery. A discovery of Japan from 963 AD to the samurai of the 20th century. Regarding your question about AI, I would say that the opposite of erasing boundaries occurred. AI receives data and returns that data. It can't imagine. And the search we undertake is based on the premise of knowing in order to create.

Benjamin Lacombe : Well, creativity is really a philosophical topic. I remember what happened when the e-book came out. People talked about the end of the book. And the e-book actually served to show that books are irreplaceable and to better understand what makes a book a book. What makes an image or an object art? Marcel Duchamp (with his famous urinal) raised the question, but the issue is still not settled.

– What is your favorite work, each of yours?

Sebastián Pérez: –It’s very difficult to choose.

Benjamin Lacombe: –Next time.

– Well, what’s next?!

Benjamin Lacombe: –It’s a very tender, very personal book that Sébastien will write.

Sebastián Pérez : –About Christmas , with a generational leap. For now, we can't say anything more.

Benjamin Lacombe : I think it's hard to choose just one book because all the books we make are important. They're about personal projects, and they feel truly yours. I've always dreamed of illustrating Dorian Gray. The theme is important— gay rights—even more so at this time when there are homophobic and transphobic laws again. It's a book made by an artist who gave his all, who was subject to censorship, who did everything to defend his freedom. And on the other hand, I made Bambi . Does it seem like those books have nothing to do with each other? But, ultimately, we currently live in part of those worlds, between Bambi and Dorian Gray.

Benjamin Lacombe: –We were saying that we live in Dorian's world. And we also live in Bambi 's world, which was written in the 1920s by a Jewish author (Felix Salten) who, in effect, put into words the imminent arrival of Nazism and a totalitarian society. Think of anti-Semitism today... Perhaps books allow us to put ourselves in the shoes of these oppressed people.

Sebastián Pérez: –And let's add the samurai women, defiant, warriors.

For example? Empress Jingu , who is said to have conquered three enemy kingdoms in the 3rd century. Or Nagano Takeko , who led an all-female army in the 19th century.

The protagonists of the book's seven stories recall that extraordinary women existed here and there who defied the most rigid conventions, even though their stories have remained on the brink of oblivion for centuries.

Benjamin Lacombe: Eastern traditions also speak to our present. Today, when rights regarding the disposition of women's bodies seem to be in retreat in parts of the West, or when women are subjugated, silenced, hidden behind burqas in Afghanistan, Simone de Beauvoir 's 1949 quote, quoted on the back cover of A History of Women ..., remains relevant: "Never forget that a political, economic, or religious crisis will once again call into question women's rights. These rights are never taken for granted."

Benjamin Lacombe will be signing copies at the Edelvives stand today, May 1st, starting at 5 PM.