“Books cling to me. They fly down to me – run up and attach themselves to me I love them for so long, large and small, thick and thin, rare editions and cheap little booklets, in blearing dust jackets or thoughtfully enveloped in solid leather, as if in soft shoes. They should not be too neat, like suites from the tailors; they should not be clad in greasy rags. A book should lie in the hand like a well adjusted tool. I have loved them so much that they have begun to love me back. Books burst open like ripe fruit in my hands, and fold back their petals like magic flowers, bearing the seed of thought, a stimulating word, an apt quotation, a useful illustration’’ This quote, which I understand so well, comes from Sergei Eisenstein. It was mounted on the outside wall of a reconstruction of his study in Moscow. A Spartan room in some ways; though inhabited by objects, dedicated photographs, books, Russian Vyatka toys and other folklore items, a triptych of Japanese woodblock prints by Utamaro, and two long frames containing a series of engravings by Jacques Callot with the title ‘Balli Di Sfessania’, showing the ancient characters of the Commedia dell-arte, all the things that influenced the work o Eisenstein, and which I too know so well because the same things surround and influence me. This quote was noted during a visit to the Oxford Museum of Modern Art, and the exhibition, ‘Eisenstein1898-1948: His Life and Work’. August 1988. John M. Blundall

eisenstein on Books