André PIEYRE DE MANDIARGUES (1909-1991). Autograph manuscript signed, À Salamanque; 2pages in-4. Fine text on Salamanca and the painter Tapies. "In Salamanca, turning my back on a stoning of St. Stephen, behind which, but in the church, is the tomb of that priceless bastard who called himself the Duke of Alba, I look at a poor house": in the middle of the ochre wall "opens a single window which is situated as if at random and which is framed by thin beams", in the center of it "hangs like a shroud a recently washed cloth heavy and of a cement gray. Three other dishcloths hang outside, to the left of the window, one blue, the other median purple, the last also blue but darker, all three in the last degree of wear, and in the still air they quiver a little like dying birds. Tapies, whom I obviously think of immediately, as would anyone who has opened their eyes to modern art, is undoubtedly a painter of myths who, using rigorous and simple means, achieves poetic representation [...]. But you don't have to travel very far to see that Tapies is also the last of the great Spanish realists, and that no one since Zurbarán had understood and painted the things of Spain like this man from Catalonia". Mandiargues also evokes Burri's works, "those vivid tears lovingly bridled by the fingers of a painter who is as much embalmer as doctor", which remind him of "the elements of bouquets and garlands that are like seals placed on nudity in Caravaggio's canvases"... With a touch of nostalgia, he wanders through Salamanca, "the sunniest city of all, with the carnal reddishness of its built or sculpted material", before returning to the terrace of the church of St. Esteban, "turning his back on a bas-relief of the martyrdom of St. Stephen, behind which, but in the cool of the church, lies that exemplary carrion who was the illustrious governor of Flanders".