La Métamorphose des dieux
One of 10,250 numbered copies on vélin, bound after the design by Paul Bonet.
Signed presentation inscription: “Pour Charles Terrasse avec l'amical souvenir d'A. Malraux.”
Endowed with an exceptional visual memory, cultivated since his youth through visits to museums — notably the Musée Guimet — and through his travels, Malraux placed his erudition at the service of a metaphysical doctrine of art, first set out in 1951 in Les Voix du silence. Photography allowed him to bring together, in an imaginary museum within reach, masterpieces scattered across the world: using photographs by Maurice Jarnoux, he composed the first volume of what would become La Métamorphose des dieux. “Like my novels, like my Antimémoires, like Les Voix du silence, La Métamorphose des dieux deals essentially with the relationship between man and destiny,” he wrote in his preface.
It forms the seventh volume of the “La Galerie de la Pléiade” series; 30 color plates and numerous black-and-white reproductions accompany the text.
Huret, 331.