392 - FRANQUIN, André *Un oeil viscéral*. Silkscreen print, 50.0 x 70.0 cm (sheet), heavy paper, signed on the screen, signed in pencil, numbered 91/300. Starting in 1972, André Franquin began drawing “Monsters” (as he called them), which were later republished in two albums by Dupuis. These improbable “monsters,” deeply original, were strange and even one-of-a-kind, yet they possessed—and this is what gives them their charm—a surprising degree of credibility. Should this one—which vaguely resembles a creature from the ocean depths—be included in this legendary series? Note that—like some of its counterparts featured in this two-volume collection—it is depicted with an enormous, protruding eye, featuring a large, shiny iris. And like most of its counterparts, it is neither frightening nor repulsive. It even has something fascinating, comical, and—what’s more—endearing about it. What is striking, in any case, is that this proto-fish—which, on the scale of living beings, should rank below the freshwater mussel and the cuttlefish—possesses such a vivid form of life and such a powerful capacity for evocation and expression. After all, here we are in the presence of a creature, seemingly all guts, equipped with a single eye in place of a head, and whose skin is covered with small craters and tiny ringed tentacles (whose, incidentally, it’s hard to discern their biological function: is it for breathing? for feeding? for moving?). In short, this invertebrate—presumably aquatic and, at first glance, bearing no resemblance to a endearing, cuddly, and sociable pet—is imbued with a charge of joyful and delightful emotion. And it exerts a singularly seductive effect. Prov. [Gita Brys-Schatan].