Carnival Tumblers' Backdrops

"Rimbaud is there with his well-known tirade: 'I used to love idiotic paintings, overdoor pictures, stage decors, carnival tumblers' backdrops, signboards, popular prints, old-fashioned literature, pornographic books with bad spelling, novels of our grandmothers' day, fairy tales, tiny books for tiny tots, old operas, silly refrains, naive rhythms.' So much the worse for those who do not confess to a taste like that; so much the worse for those who turn their backs on the fantastic..."

-Albert Valentin on Eugene Atget, 1928