Rondes de nuit. by BOURNAZEL, Diane de.

Large square 4to (255 × 230 mm), 16 unnumbered pages, on handmade paper, all in pen and ink, fully illuminated in gouache colours, with paper-cutting and and collage, within cut and illuminated borders, one moveable part Bound by Armelle Guégant in decorative boards and matching with paper onlays, lettered in manuscript, slipcase.

The largest and most elaborate of Diane de Bournazel’s recent books, Rondes de nuit explores the possibilities and mysteries of the night, both from the human perspective of sleep, rest and dreaming, as well as the unseen life of the natural world in darkness and the infinite expanses of the night sky. At the centre of every page is a circular void, corresponding with depictions of the full moon at either end of the book, which can be seen in every opening. Each circular hole is illuminated to form a rebus or mandala, sometimes reminiscent of the visionary medieval manuscripts of the contemplative mystic, Hildegard of Bingen (notably Scivias and Liber divinorum operum). Elsewhere, figures float in space (one can be rocked back-and-forth as a moveable part) or participate in an eternal dance of life (and death). Lest we should see this as an evocation of the books of a distant past, a tiny floating space station against the night sky reminds of the artist’s contemporaneity.