Little Augury has been exploring fascinating terrain in her recent post: should we judge a book by its cover? Literally and figuratively, we do. And if we do, we should take into account cultural bagage, what you bring with you when you are face to face with something new, with any experience in fact. Take the same book and observe the differences in the American book cover, the British one, the French one etc. Sometimes a flashy best seller from the US is published with an artistic or intellectual looking cover in France. The novel is the same, but our impression is different. Is this just marketing? (There seems to be less difference in recent years though.)
A book on art or decoration doesn't undergo such radical changes. There is the integrity of the work or artist to be taken into account, but choices are made. The results can be very different.The beauté above (top photo) is the cover of the French edition of the Robert Murphy/Ivan Terestchenko book on Yves St Laurent and Pierre Bergé. It is the purist of the three covers (see below and Little Augury).
Is that YSL and PB as the Greek god Janus, keeping watch at the gate of their secret paradise? Does Janus, looking to the past and to the future, mark the transition for the places, people and things contained between the covers of this book? The mood is solemnly commemorative as with a funerary stele. Is this a way of not turning the page?! In any case, even if this is the edition you prefer, the book that came out only in February is not available; it's already out of stock. Good news! The word from Ivan Terestchenko is that it will be available once again at the end of the year.
For more of the stunning photography of Ivan Terestchenko, click*
For more of the stunning photography of Ivan Terestchenko, click*
AmericanOpen door, color, pattern.
Closed space, graphic elegance.
Along with the aesthetic, notice too the title differences.
Are the differences more due to the respective audiences or to their views of YSL-Pierre Bergé?
The universe may be expanding but this old world is shrinking. Where differences exist, let them be celebrated, because even in imitating we always manage to create something new.
