Conceived as a mutual tribute between two giants of the twentieth century, Celui qui dit les choses sans rien dire brings together twenty-five original etchings by Marc Chagall and a collection of previously unpublished poems by Louis Aragon, written specifically for this project. Published in Paris in 1976 by Éditions Maeght, the work is listed as number 99 in Cramer’s catalogue raisonné. It was printed in 205 copies on Rives wove paper, including 25 deluxe copies with the full suite of signed etchings, numbered in Arabic numerals, as well as a few rare hors commerce impressions, numbered in Roman numerals.
In this series, Chagall does not illustrate Aragon’s texts—he traverses them. His suggestive line, his figures suspended in white space, his ghostlike animals and vanishing faces form a parallel world — a visual dream layered over the poet’s verbal one. The dialogue between word and image becomes a play of reflections, where neither seeks to dominate the other.
In the present impression, a near-spectral female figure emerges from a milky background. Her body seems to dissolve as it reveals itself, as if Chagall were attempting to capture the very image of absence. There is no pathos here, only a gentle gravity, a light made of memory. The silence of the print echoes the title of the book: to say things without saying them is perhaps to show them in all their unrepresentability. And it is precisely there that Chagall excels—transforming the muteness of emotion into a suspended image.
