Maurice Denis (1870-1943) - Lot 302

Maurice Denis (1870-1943) Gide (André). Le Voyage d'Urien. Paris, Librairie de l'art indépendant, 1893. One vol. in-8 square [190 x 202], paperback, illustrated with 29 cameo lithographs, including 2 full-page. Cailler 37 to 67. Filled japon cover, illustrated with a woodcut on the upper cover. Stamp R. T. stamp on title. Slightly oxidized laid leaves. One of 300 numbered copies. Modern orange boards and slipcase. Joint: wedding announcement for Jean Dominique Denis, the artist's son, in 1933. "Gide published Le Voyage d'Urien just after Le Traité du Narcisse, in 1893. At the time, he believed he had found his calling as a symbolist, and his story, in the tradition of poetic narratives, turned its back on realism. The young writer seemed ready to realize the ambition, confessed to Valéry in January 1891, of becoming, like "Mallarmé for poetry, Materlinck for drama", the symbolist novelist. His book is indeed the work of an aesthete influenced by the aesthetic idealism in vogue in the early 1890s, all the more so as the original edition features thirty lithographs [note: in reality there are 29 lithographs and one woodcut] signed by Maurice Denis, the book being published under a double author's name. And even if the book also takes on certain features of the Jules Verne or Albert Robida-style adventure novel, it is indeed a journey in a room, or in a library, that resonates with a multitude of literary echoes. [...] Urien's adventure is indeed an idealistic quest. For Urien and his companions, it's a matter of going beyond appearances to reach the ideal, by discovering the truth of the self and the truth of the world". (J.-M. Wittmann, www.andre-gide.fr).