Roger Caillois. Reading Stones.
Xavier Barral| N° d'inventaire | 23006 |
| Format | 19.5 x 25.5 |
| Détails | 432 pages, approximately 150 color photographs, publisher's hardcover. |
| Publication | Paris, reissued 2020 |
| Etat | Nine |
| ISBN | 9782365110570 |
This book reveals the most beautiful stones from Roger Caillois's exceptional collection through previously unpublished photographs, produced in collaboration with the National Museum of Natural History in Paris (MNHN), which received a large part of the collection as a gift. Essayist and academic, Roger Caillois developed a passion from an early age for "curious stones, which attract attention by some anomaly in their form or by some significant oddity of design or color. He approaches the mineral world with a very personal vision where art and natural sciences bring out a new image of the universe. This visual journey through Roger Caillois's collection is accompanied by the reissue of his famous texts: Stones, The Writing of Stones and Paradoxical Agates. Descriptive and meditative, these texts are a eulogy to these minerals, the reading of which allows one to share the delight they inspired in Roger Caillois. An introduction by Massimiliano Gioni, associate director of the New Museum in New York and curator of the 2013 Venice Biennale, places Caillois's works within the realm of contemporary creation. Henri-Jean Schubnel, former curator of the mineralogy collection at the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle and advisor to Caillois on his mineral selection, tells us about their friendship. A glossary compiled by Gian Carlo Parodi, mineralogist and lecturer at the Museum, presents the major stone families in the Caillois collection.
This book reveals the most beautiful stones from Roger Caillois's exceptional collection through previously unpublished photographs, produced in collaboration with the National Museum of Natural History in Paris (MNHN), which received a large part of the collection as a gift. Essayist and academic, Roger Caillois developed a passion from an early age for "curious stones, which attract attention by some anomaly in their form or by some significant oddity of design or color. He approaches the mineral world with a very personal vision where art and natural sciences bring out a new image of the universe. This visual journey through Roger Caillois's collection is accompanied by the reissue of his famous texts: Stones, The Writing of Stones and Paradoxical Agates. Descriptive and meditative, these texts are a eulogy to these minerals, the reading of which allows one to share the delight they inspired in Roger Caillois. An introduction by Massimiliano Gioni, associate director of the New Museum in New York and curator of the 2013 Venice Biennale, places Caillois's works within the realm of contemporary creation. Henri-Jean Schubnel, former curator of the mineralogy collection at the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle and advisor to Caillois on his mineral selection, tells us about their friendship. A glossary compiled by Gian Carlo Parodi, mineralogist and lecturer at the Museum, presents the major stone families in the Caillois collection.