Michel LEIRIS (1901-1990). Autograph manuscript, La ligne sans bride, [1971]; on 47pages small in-4, orange covers preserved, all mounted on tabs and bound in one vol. orange box spine and orange cloth boards (Leroux, 1980). Working manuscript of this preface to Massacres et autres dessins by surrealist painter André MASSON (Hermann, 1971). The manuscript is written in blue ink on the back of proof sheets for Alfred Jarry's Ubu cocu. A remarkable study of drawing, and of the art of André Masson (1896-1987), in the form of notes, often poetic. Leiris begins: "The first problem - unresolved and perhaps insoluble - of art criticism is to determine the point at which writing becomes calligraphy. Why is X a calligrapher when Y is not? [...] As for André Masson's drawings, why is the line so alive, and so much more than a "calligraphic" line? How, precisely, does it differ from that of other prestigious artists?"... In conclusion, Leiris writes of these notes: "What they lack most, I know only too well, is to have been written with a pen sharp as a bird's eye and inked with sap or blood. Thrown onto paper in this way, each in a single stroke, the imitation would have been perfect. Speaking of Masson as he draws would have required a clean slate, a cleansing through emptiness that would not have escaped the intention of also speaking of his drawings. It would be pointless to draw or paint, if the critic, with his phrases, whether copied from the model or not, could pierce the enigma. For, if there is an art that counts, it is the one that - without the artist having sought it out - is a critique of art criticism, and a critique vigorous enough to shut the critic's mouth".