Guillaume Apollinaire (1880–1918,) pseudonym of Wilhelm Apollinaris de Kostrowltzky, was a French lyric poet, prose writer, and art critic. One of the most extraordinary artists of early 20th-century Paris, he produced criticism and theoretical writings that have influenced Cubism, Surrealism, and other esthetic movements.
Born in Rome of Polish descent, Apollinaire settled in Paris in 1900 and became the head of the movement rejecting poetic traditions in form, rhythm, and language. The unusual, symbolist, and fantastic elements of his work bear a resemblance to the Cubist school in painting.
An ardent supporter of contemporary developments in poetry and painting, his Méditations esthétiques: les peintres cubistes, (1913; The Cubist Painters, Aesthetic Meditations, 1944) was the first attempt to define Cubism.
Apollinaire’s experimental poetry includes L’Enchanteur pourrissant (1909, ‘The Rotting Magician,’) Le Bestiaire (1911,) Alcools (1913; Alcohols, 1964) and Calligrammes (1918.) He was wounded in World War I, and, during his convalescence, wrote the play Les Mamelles de Tirésias (1918, ‘The Breasts of Tiresias,’) for which he coined the term ‘surrealist,’ and the Modernist manifesto L’Esprit nouveau et les poètes (1946, ‘The New Spirit and the Poets.’)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Guillaume Apollinaire
To insist on purity is to baptize instinct, to humanize art, and to deify personality.
—Guillaume Apollinaire
Artists are, above all, men who want to become inhuman.
—Guillaume Apollinaire
Topics: Art, Artists
We cannot carry our father’s corpse with us everywhere we go.
—Guillaume Apollinaire
A structure becomes architectural, and not sculptural, when its elements no longer have their justification in nature.
—Guillaume Apollinaire
Topics: Science, Architecture
I love men, not for what unites them, but for what divides them, and I want to know most of all what gnaws at their hearts.
—Guillaume Apollinaire
Topics: Humanity
Memories are hunting horns whose sound dies on the wind.
—Guillaume Apollinaire
Topics: One liners
“Come to the edge,” he said. They said, “We are afraid.” “Come to the edge,” he said. They came. He pushed them … and they flew!.
—Guillaume Apollinaire
Topics: Fear, Courage
I don’t want to work. I want to smoke.
—Guillaume Apollinaire
Topics: Work
Without poets, without artists, men would soon weary of nature’s monotony. The sublime idea men have of the universe would collapse with dizzying speed. The order which we find in nature, and which is only an effect of art, would at once vanish. Everything would break up in chaos. There would be no seasons, no civilization, no thought, no humanity; even life would give way, and the impotent void would reign everywhere.
—Guillaume Apollinaire
Topics: Art, Artists
Now and then it’s good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.
—Guillaume Apollinaire
Topics: Happiness
The plastic virtues: purity, unity, and truth, keep nature in subjection.
—Guillaume Apollinaire
Topics: Nature
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
Jean Cocteau French Poet, Artist
Charles Baudelaire French Poet
Jean de La Fontaine French Poet
Alphonse de Lamartine French Poet, Politician, Historian
Arthur Rimbaud French Poet
Remy de Gourmont French Poet
Victor Hugo French Novelist
Mario Andretti Italian-born American Sportsperson
Francis Marion Crawford Italian-born American Novelist
Gian Carlo Menotti Italian-born American Composer