Prose on the Trans-Siberian Railway and of the Little Jehanne of France by Blaise Cendrars

Widely considered to be one of the most important artist’s books of the twentieth century, La Prose du Transsibérien et de la petite Jehanne de France is a celebrated example of Sonia Delaunay’s "simultaneous" abstract painting, which emphasizes the juxtaposition of colors and organic shapes to produce the simulation of lyrical movement. Her composition, rendered in an unusual vertical format, runs parallel to the accompanying text by Blaise Cendrars: a semi-autobiographical account of a poet’s journey (with his companion, Jehanne) on the Trans-Siberian Railway through Russia and Mongolia. Cendrars’s prose, written in an erratic rhythm and printed in different fonts and colors, echoes the train’s trajectory through disparate landscapes, while the artist’s vibrant abstraction—with its overlapping and cascading forms—suggests the dynamic motion visible through a train window. This fluid unification of text and image gives visual form to the spatial and temporal dislocations of modern life effected by technological innovations.