Book as Art

Edmond de Goncourt had the first edition of his friends' works bound in parchment and a portrait of the writer painted on the cover by the artist he deemed most appropriate for each writer. Jean-Francois Raffaeli did the one of Zola; the image here is simply called Bohème since I do not have access to a book cover.

Carrière did the one of Daudet, but I have included here a study of Daudet with his daughter.

Paul Valéry, in Aesthetics, disdains this project as it entirely forgets the purpose of the book. The book can no longer be read but is mummified "to sit eternally in a glass case".

For collectors this would undoubtedly seem an entirely natural response. This particular book is not to be perused but worshipped, fetishized. For Goncourt, the book became an object for posterity through the additional artistic endeavor of the portrait. The knowledge contained within the book is no longer material to the book's value. The book's value now occurs through being contained first, in vellum and then, by art. In fact, the question becomes whether the object is valued as a book, or as a portrait. In what sense does it remain a book except as the foundation for its current state, transformed into an objet d'art by the portrait, by its wrapping, by its untouchability? I can easily dismiss the question by saying it is all of the above. But that dismissal does not acknowledge the complication caused by each additional step of time (first edition), wrapping (vellum), additional artistic endeavor (portrait done by known artist), fragility (parchment and art made it impossible to touch), and lastly its possession by Goncourt, whose reputation adds to the history and thus value as an object.

To complicate the matter further, the book would now be valued as a collector's item by virtue of being a first edition, that is book-to -be-read into book-as-historical-entity. Its historicity then alters it from a book-to-be-read into book-as-value-object. First editions are rarely read or handled precisely for being rare. But in this instance, the book can not be confirmed as a first edition without destroying its surrounding artifactuality. The book is known to be a first edition through its historicity.

If the book is uninteresting, trite, or simplistic, it no longer matters. The content of the book, in some sense what it is the book refers to in being a book, has become irrelevant. Its materiality has literally disappeared.

As a collector do you want the book because you are a fan of Zola? Edmond de Goncourt? Raffaeli? Or, simply for the conquest of collection? Do you want it because it is a book or a work of art?