Que tu brilles enfin, terme pur de ma course!

1936

Narcisse: Que tu brilles enfin, terme pur de ma course!, 1936. Laure Albin Guillot (French, 1879–1962). Fresson print; image: 34.1 x 26.3 cm (13 7/16 x 10 3/8 in.); paper: 34.1 x 26.3 cm (13 7/16 x 10 3/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Dudley P. Allen Fund 2018.211.5 Laure Albin Guillot wanted to produce a book that illustrated contemporary literature with photographs of equal quality and was itself a work of art. She chose to illustrate Paul Valéry’s poem Fragments de Narcisse, 1919–22, based on the myth of a beautiful young hunter who falls in love with his own reflection in a pond and is driven to suicide by the futility of his unrequited love. The tactile emphasis in this book’s printing and papers echoes the sensuousness appropriate to a love story.