Édouard Chimot (1880 – 1959) ~ aquatint etching illustration for Les Chansons de Bilitis, 1925.

 

Édouard Chimot (1880 -1959) ~ illustration for Maurice Magre, 1920.

I do not know whether there are people who escape despair, and if there are, I believe that they are not very numerous. I do not envy those people. There is in despair a bitter substance, a fecund poison, the seed of a superior virtue that one cannot find elsewhere. Everyone, sooner or later, ought to aspire to the juice of the hemlock that gives wings, the sacred belladonna. But it is necessary to be able to drink the poison and not die.

-Maurice Magre

Édouard Chimot (1880 – 1959) ~ illustration for Les Fleurs du mal, 1941

Edouard Chimot (1880-1959)... Dreams and Masturbation, pencil, pastel and chalk c 1920