Stone-Ideas.com 
It deals with life and death in marble sculptures and, of course, new life from love
“Erotique du cimetière” (Eroticism of the Cemetery) was published in France in 1998 and was immediately awarded the Grand Prix de l’Humour Noir (Grand Prix of Black Humor). It features over 250 photographs by the author André Chabot, selected from over 175,000 images from his archive. As a “necropolitan walker”, as he describes himself, he has taken them in over 100 cities in 30 countries.
Now the work, which deals with the sensitive subject in a serious but by no means dry manner, has been published in a revised and expanded new edition. The publisher is La Musardine, which describes itself as “The erotic bookshop of Paris“ (La Librarie erotique de Paris). The language is French, the price 30 €.
The pictures are worth seeing. They come from cemeteries from New York to Hong Kong, from Havana to Buenos Aires, from Oslo to Barcelona, and above all from Milan and Genoa. Italy is rightly known as the “queen of funerary sculpture.”
And just as the unbiased tourist strolling through the cemeteries sometimes wonders what is depicted or hinted at there – under the stern eyes of the bureaucrats of the faith – in marble sculptures of great craftsmanship, the titles for the chapters of the book hint at the wide range of topics: They are called “Dying of lust” (Et mourir de plaisir), “Sin of love – mortal sin” (Péché d’amour péché mortel), “Giving lust a pure form” (Donner une forme pure à la volupté), “The secret shivers of marble” (Les secrets frissons des marbres) and more.
Of course, the author digs deep into history and also questions the role of women in the interaction with the war hero. He also looks at the androgynous angel, an artistic ideal of the 18th century, or the beautiful youth.
In a book review in the French magazine Pierre Actual, it is suggested that little remains of this image of the human world in the cemetery and that today one mainly finds “reduced and resigned” gravestones that are standardized and imported from the Far East.
In Germany, such imports are known as “soul slides”.
In all the reviews of the book, we have found a striking quote on death and life that Madame de Fontaine Martel, a contemporary of Voltaire, is said to have said on her deathbed: “My consolation is that I am certain in this hour that somewhere at this very moment someone is making love.” (Ma consolation est qu’à cette heure, je suis sûre que quelque part on fait l’amour).
La Musardine (French)
(27.09.2024, USA: 09.27.2024)