Malraux andré

1953 · 21775 — New York: Doubleday & Company Inc. 1953. Very Good/Good. One of the most influential art-historical works of the postwar era this volume represents Malraux's full-scale assault on traditional linear art history. <br /> <br /> It is the book that taught the world to see art as a universal language of human defiance against mortality. For the collector of modern thought or art theory a first American edition in a surviving jacket is a mandatory acquisition.<br /> <br /> KEY FEATURES<br /> Visuals: Profusely illustrated with hundreds of heliogravure illustrations in black-and-white and several tipped-in color plates.<br /> Visual Encyclopedia: Contains over 600 pages of integrated text and imagery utilizing a sophisticated layout that forces the reader to make the cross-cultural connections Malraux describes.<br /> Binding: Original black cloth with gilt and blind-stamped designs to the front board and spine.<br /> Imprint: Doubleday & Company Inc. Garden City NY 1953. First American Edition.<br /> Specs: Thick quarto; 8.5 inches tall; xii 661 pages including a detailed index and list of illustrations.<br /> Design: Typography and layout designed to emphasize the visual dialogue between disparate cultures e.g. placing a Greek torso next to a Khmer Buddha.<br /> <br /> CONDITION: <br /> THE BOOK: The bindings are tight and square holding the considerable weight of the 600-plus page text block firmly. The internal pages are clean and free of markings showing only light even age-toning consistent with 1950s paper stock. <br /> DUST JACKET: The dust jacket is present but shows the typical vulnerabilities of this heavy volume: the spine is sun-darkened and there is light hand-soiling to the panels. There is a small area of loss at the head of the spine and minor rubbing to the extremities. The jacket is now preserved in a clear archival protective sleeve.<br /> <br /> SCHOLARLY FEATURES<br /> Aesthetic Philosophy: Explores the 'metamorphosis' of art where a religious idol becomes a 'work of art' once removed from its original temple and placed in a museum or book.<br /> Modernist Influence: Deeply impacted the thinking of contemporary figures from Walter Benjamin to Marshall McLuhan bridging the gap between traditional connoisseurship and modern media theory.<br /> Scholarly Shield: As a primary text in the history of the museum this edition is essential for institutional research into how 20th-century curators and historians viewed global heritage. This work popularized the revolutionary idea that the 'imaginary museum' of photographs and prints allows for a global synchronized experience of art history.<br /> Polymathic Perspective: Malraux's dual life as a revolutionary novelist and France's future Minister of Cultural Affairs informs the work's epic philosophical scale.<br /> Postwar Landmark: Published at a moment when Europe was rebuilding its cultural identity; it served as a spiritual defense of Western and World civilization. HISTORICAL SIGNIFICANCE -<br /> André Malraux was a towering figure in French intellectual life a man of action who fought in the Spanish Civil War and the French Resistance before becoming a chief cultural architect under Charles de Gaulle. 'The Voices of Silence' is his most enduring contribution to the world of ideas.<br /> <br /> This 1953 edition was the first to bring Malraux's matured 'Psychology of Art' to a broad American audience. It appeared exactly as the United States was assuming a dominant role in the international art market providing the intellectual justification for the massive encyclopedic museum collections being built in cities like New York and Chicago.<br /> <br /> SUBJECTS: Aesthetics Museum Theory Comparative Art Visual Culture André Malraux Art Reproduction Cultural Memory 20th-Century Thought Art History Philosophy Cultural Criticism. Doubleday & Company, Inc. unknown