Tragic in the Style of Comics

In a dreamlike dialogue, photographer Denise Bellon walks down the steps while the Barbary Tower and its palm tree are anthropomorphized by a cartoon speech bubble in the background. "No, are you really going?" asks the palace. The woman replies poetically: "Earth takes on water from all sides. The cabin girl lives off words of love. This evening, the wind is blowing my flag. I've left the key on the mantelpiece." As if in symbiosis with the nature so often depicted in the palace, the photographer is drawn outside, while giving the impression that she lives in the building. Although Postman Cheval wanted to be buried in the Egyptian temple, this piece of architecture has served no purpose other than to be admired as a monument. Itself having emerged right out of a dream, the palace echoes the writings of André Breton, which were often driven by dreams and the unconscious. Having come to visit the palace in 1931 and 1949, he said, "Postman Cheval ... remains the uncontested master of visionary sculpture and architecture." In 1932, he paid tribute to him in the form of a poem titled Le Révolver à Cheveux Blancs (The White-Haired Revolver).