Period III

I M A G E S O F M Y C O R E

1 9 7 3 - 1 9 8 6

Rythmosophy, Microcosms, Inner Landscapes

The Withdrawal (Le Repli sur soi), 1976

During the summer of 1972, Madeleine Novarina learnt she was suffering from a malignant lump in her left breast. In September, during her convalescence in Chantilly, she drew increasingly complex structures, with neat and zigzagging lines, and then tried colour compositions.

"I do not know why I do this, she told me. These are things that come from my own core." I noticed: "It is obvious that you are catching psychic movements or even nerve transmissions. Your hand, like the needle of a recorder, is translating your feelings when faced with internal models which become obvious to you.” She was giving an allegorical representation of emotions, tendencies, states of being. It appeared afterwards that a given drawing was expressing "the act of planning a project", another one "a passing hunch." Madeleine Novarina did not know in advance where her creative instinct would lead her. She was the first to be surprised, after completing a drawing, that her design actually represented a fish standing on its tail and deploying its fins, ready to curtsy. It was thus titled le Poisson qui fait des manières (fish with mannerism).

«Madeleine Novarina», par Sarane Alexandrian,

Éditions de l’Amateur, Paris, 1992, p. 150

Rythmosophy

Microcosmes