Entre paraître et disparaître: Le 'Testament' de Nina de Villard

The eclipse of Nina de Villard and the paradoxical petrification of her image (she is better known as Manet's "La Dame aux éventails") is explicable in terms of the social and artistic environment of the second half of the nineteenth century. Her "Test-ament," both by dint of its position at the head of a collection of poems (Feuillets parisiens) and by its choice of themes (art, artifice, representation, greenhouse), takes up the exposition motif so central to the whole fin-de-siècle period. Moreover, a close reading of the poem reveals the anguish of a female voice smothered by an excess of representation. In an age of exhibitions, collections and various bric-à-brac, it would appear that Nina de Villard's overvisibility caused her to disappear from view. (In French) (SH-L)