Essayist, grammarian, and poet, Roger Caillois devoted part of his work to defining the boundaries between nature and art. Driven by an insatiable curiosity, scientific rigor and boundless imagination, he collected stones with passion and erudition for over twenty-five years. And It was in the meticulous contemplation of minerals that this master of the French language derived much of his reflection and poetic inspiration.

From 1959 onwards, he published essays inspired by his collection of “picture stones” including The Writing of Stones, his most renowned work, which was first printed in 1970. Elected to the Académie Française the following year, he continued to explore the mineral world until his passing in 1978.

Toady, this precious collection - now largely preserved at the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle (MNHN) - brings together over a thousand specimens, thanks in particular to the support of L'ÉCOLE, School of Jewelry Arts. 

The exhibition explores the writer’s sources of inspiration, starting with Patagonia, which he discovered during his exile in Argentina in 1939-1945, and which aroused his interest in picture stones – a kind of rock whose shape or natural motifs evoke images or landscapes. Visitors will follow Roger Caillois on his travels to Japan and China and discover his fascination for Asian cultures as well as his reinterpretation of the “mystical hikes” of Chinese scholars who encouraged mental reverie through contemplation of the petrified world.

Between scientific precision and the world of dreams, Roger Caillois sought forgotten alphabets and miniature cosmic landscapes in stones. The exhibition “Stones and reveries: the poetry and minerals of Roger Caillois” also explores Roger Caillois’s “Twilight Images,” in which he embraced the mystical, seeing masks, ghosts, “wounds” and landscapes from worlds beyond.