Jacques Henric's 'La Balance des blancs' on the Power of Black

An excerpt from Jacques Henric's book 'La Balance des blancs' (éditions du Seuil, coll. Fiction et cie) explores the artistic and philosophical embrace of black. Henric argues that betting on black requires mastery, moral health, and strength of soul, citing artists like Goya (Pinturas negras), Velázquez, Ribera, Murillo, Manet, Picasso (Guernica), Saura, Bernard Dufour, and writers such as Aragon, Cervantès, Hölderlin, Stendhal, Nietzsche, Tolstoï, Proust, Bataille, and Debord. He references Alix Cléo Roubaud's photographic series 'Si quelque chose noir' (1981) and her journal entries from 9.6.81 and 8.1.83. Eric Rondepierre's photograms and works like 'La vie est belle' (1993) and 'Chronique d'un amour' (1990) are mentioned. Henric recounts a blind man in Nabokov's 'La Chambre obscure' and alludes to suicides of Jean Eustache and Maïakovski. He cites Lawrence Durrel's 'Le Carnet noir', Unica Zürn, Henry Miller's 'Printemps noir', Joë Bousquet, and André Breton's encounter with a girl in Paris on 12 April 1931. The text weaves references to Saint Augustin, Proust, Pascal, Sade, and the Kabbalah, asserting that black is not inertia but joy of life.