L'Ymagier

L'Ymagier was a French art magazine established in 1894 by the writer and artist Alfred Jarry and the novelist, poet, and critic Remy de Gourmont. Its subtitle, “A Magazine of Engravings,” reflected its central purpose: to make prints and the expressive possibilities of woodcutting the primary vehicle of an experimental artistic publication. The magazine appeared during a period when Symbolist artists and writers were challenging academic realism and the assumption that visual art should reproduce optical reality. Rather than treating the engraving as merely an inexpensive reproductive process, L'Ymagier presented it as a direct, forceful, and potentially archaic form of artistic expression. Jarry and Gourmont brought practical experience with woodcutting to the project. Their financial circumstances were sometimes precarious, and they experimented with unconventional materials, including linoleum and soap, when producing cuttings. Jarry also had an early interest in editing and collaborative literary publication, having participated in L'Art Littéraire before creating L'Ymagier. The new magazine gave its founders unusual control over the selection, arrangement, and presentation of images and texts. This editorial independence allowed them to place religious imagery, popular or primitive forms, contemporary art, and deliberately strange or unsettling pictures within the same publication. The magazine's intellectual orientation was strongly Symbolist. Jarry argued for the importance of direct and archetypal symbols, and the publication repeatedly explored the relationship between Christian imagery and modern, deliberately primitive art. Representations of the Passion, the Virgin Mary, and the Christ Child were presented alongside work associated with Paul Gauguin, Émile Bernard, Jarry himself, and other contributors. The editorial project sought to move art away from simple visual description and toward cult, ritual, dream, and the universal or childish forces believed to underlie social and artistic life. These ideas anticipated concerns that Jarry would develop further in his writing, including the grotesque and mythic world of Ubu Roi. L'Ymagier published five issues between October 1894 and October 1895. The first issue, devoted to the Passion, emphasized religious woodcuts. A January 1895 issue titled “Monsters” shifted toward more disturbing and unusual imagery. The April issue addressed the Virgin and Christ Child, while a July issue returned to the Passion. The final number, “Gingerbread Figures,” was notably sparse and contained only five pictures, four attributed to Alain Jans, a pseudonym used by Jarry, and one left unsigned. Soon afterward, Jarry and Gourmont separated, and the magazine ceased publication. Its contributors included Jarry and Gourmont as well as Paul Gauguin, Émile Bernard, François Georgin, and Henri Rousseau. Rousseau's participation was particularly important to the magazine's later reputation: his work helped establish him as a cult figure among avant-garde audiences and made him one of L'Ymagier's best-known contributors. Although the periodical lasted only a year, its combination of print culture, religious symbolism, primitivist interests, and unconventional editorial design gave it an influence disproportionate to its circulation and duration. Its example contributed to a broader reevaluation of the woodcut and helped shape later modernist interests in archaic, popular, and non-naturalistic image-making. After L'Ymagier ended, Jarry used an inheritance received after his father's death to establish another journal, Perhinderion. That publication continued his interest in placing apparently opposing qualities together, such as intellectual sophistication and naïveté, and included ambitious reproductions of works by Albrecht Dürer. The production standards and costly format of Perhinderion led it to stop after two issues. L'Ymagier's longer-term importance lies not in commercial continuit…

L'Ymagier emerged in Parisian avant-garde literary and artistic circles in 1894, when Alfred Jarry and Remy de Gourmont established a periodical devoted to engravings. Both founders had experience with woodcutting, and Jarry had already participated in the collaborative publication L'Art Littéraire. Their new magazine was intended to provide a setting in which the founders could control not only the selection of works but also their physical and conceptual presentation. The project was modest in resources but ambitious in its understanding of print as an artistic medium. The publication belonged to the Symbolist reaction against naturalism and academic realism. Its editors were interested in the direct force of signs, archetypal figures, and images that could evoke religious or psychological meanings without relying on conventional illusionism. L'Ymagier therefore placed devotional subjects and Christian iconography beside works associated with modern artists who used simplified, primitive, or deliberately non-naturalistic forms. The magazine's recurring interest in the Passion, the Virgin, and the Christ Child was not simply antiquarian. These subjects were treated as durable symbolic structures that could be reactivated through contemporary art. The magazine's visual program also reflected the material conditions of its founders. Jarry and Gourmont had sometimes worked with improvised materials, including linoleum and soap, when producing cuttings. This practical engagement with the medium reinforced the idea that woodcutting could be direct and tactile rather than merely reproductive. The publication's approach made room for images that were religious, grotesque, popular, archaic, naïve, or unsettling. Jarry associated such imagery with universal and primitive forces, themes that also appeared in his literary work and would become central to the grotesque theatrical universe of Ubu Roi. Five issues were published. The inaugural number appeared in October 1894 under the title The Passion. Monsters followed in January 1895, introducing a more shocking and unusual visual register. The Virgin and Christ Child appeared in April, and a second Passion issue was published in July. The final issue, Gingerbread Figures, was released in October and contained only five images. Four were published under the name Alain Jans, Jarry's pseudonym, while one was unsigned. Its reduced scale suggested the diminishing momentum of the enterprise. Jarry and Gourmont separated shortly afterward, and L'Ymagier ended without developing into a long-running periodical. The contributor list nevertheless gave the magazine lasting significance. In addition to the editors, it published work by Paul Gauguin, Émile Bernard, François Georgin, and Henri Rousseau. Rousseau's contributions were especially consequential for the magazine's later reception, helping strengthen his reputation as a cult artist among modernist and avant-garde audiences. L'Ymagier thus connected established print traditions with artists whose work challenged conventional hierarchies between fine art, popular imagery, and primitive expression. Following his father's death in 1895, Jarry used an inheritance to establish Perhinderion, another short-lived journal. It pursued related juxtapositions, including the combination of intellectual and naïve modes, and planned high-quality reproductions of Albrecht Dürer's work. Its expensive production methods caused it to stop after two issues. L'Ymagier's influence was consequently transmitted less through institutional continuity than through its example. Its advocacy of the woodcut, its use of religious and archetypal imagery, and its opposition to straightforward optical representation anticipated later modernist developments. Artists and writers associated with Picasso, Max Jacob, Surrealism, and Dadaism are often discussed in relation to this broader legacy of Symbolist experimentation.

1. 1895Publication of Monsters

   The January issue adopts the title Monsters and presents more graphic and unconventional imagery.

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2. 1895Final issue and closure

   Gingerbread Figures appears in October as the fifth issue. Jarry and Gourmont separate soon afterward, bringing the magazine to an end.

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3. 1894Founding of L'Ymagier

   Alfred Jarry and Remy de Gourmont establish the French art magazine to provide an independent platform for engravings, woodcuts, and Symbolist ideas.

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4. 1894First issue: The Passion

   The inaugural issue appears in October and focuses on woodcuts representing the Passion of Christ.

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An avant-garde French Symbolist art periodical that treated engraving and woodcutting as autonomous, expressive media and combined religious archetypes, primitivist imagery, popular forms, and experimental editorial design.

• L'Ymagier magazineArt magazine1894

  The core publication was a themed, illustrated periodical centered on engravings and woodcuts. Its issues combined Symbolist editorial thinking with religious, primitive, popular, grotesque, and contemporary imagery. Contributors included Alfred Jarry, Remy de Gourmont, Paul Gauguin, Émile Bernard, François Georgin, and Henri Rousseau. Five issues were published between October 1894 and October 1895.

• 1895Cessation after the fifth issueOther

  The editors separated after the October 1895 issue, ending the collaboration that sustained the magazine.

  What changed. L'Ymagier ceased publication rather than continuing under a new editorial structure.

  Aftermath. Jarry later pursued related publishing experiments through Perhinderion, which itself ended after two issues.

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• 1894Launch of a dedicated engraving magazineProduct launch

  Jarry and Gourmont wanted an independent publication in which they could determine the artistic content and presentation of prints, rather than treating engravings as secondary illustrations.

  What changed. They founded L'Ymagier and issued a magazine organized around woodcuts, engravings, and Symbolist interpretations of archetypal imagery.

  Aftermath. The project produced five issues and became an influential example of experimental Symbolist print publishing despite its brief life.

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• 1895L'Ymagier publishes its final issue

  The fifth and final issue, titled Gingerbread Figures, appeared in October 1895. The publication ended soon afterward following the separation of its two editors.

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• 1894L'Ymagier launches with an issue devoted to The Passion

  The first issue of the magazine appeared in October 1894 and centered on woodcuts depicting the Passion of Christ, establishing its interest in religious symbolism and print-based image making.

  Product launch
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1. L'Ymagier
2. L'Ymagier in the Bibliothèque nationale de France Gallica catalog