First edition, first printing, uncommon first issue, of Apollinaire's seminal treatise on Cubism. One of the earliest critical studies on the movement, this is the work that "established him as a serious art critic" (Bohn, p. 20). It includes numerous reproductions of artworks by key artists including Picasso, Braque, and Gris. Méditations Esthétiques was published only a couple of years after the first official Cubist exhibition in 1911, the movement having started around 1907. Originally conceived by Apollinaire in 1905 as a collection of essays (Méditations) on various directions of contemporary art, the book was eventually expanded and revised in 1912 to focus on cubism, with a new subtitle: "Les Peintres Cubistes". It is divided into two sections: "Sur La Peinture", an introductory essay containing Apollinaire's distinction between four types of cubism (scientific, physical, orphic, and instinctive); and "Peintres Noveaux", with chapters on the major exponents of the movement. The book "represents one of the most original critical sources available on the Cubist movement. Before Apollinaire's study appeared, the only sources in print were Albert Gleizes's and Jean Metzinger's Le Cubisme and Andre Salmon's La Jeune Peinture francaise, which both appeared in 1912. Though Apollinaire coined many important aesthetic terms of the avant-garde, such as "Surrealism" and "Orphism," and though he explored and commented upon other schools of visual art. it is in his analysis of Cubism that we can discover his most strikingly original voice" (Genova, pp. 52-5). Subsequent issues of the first edition bear a "mention fictive" on the front wrapper. This is a false edition statement purporting the book to be a second (or later) edition, added to give the impression that the work was so successful that it had been republished multiple times already. William Bohn, Apollinaire and the International Avant-Garde, 1997; Pamela A. Genova, "The Poetics of Visual Cubism: Guillaume Apollinaire on Pablo Picasso", Studies in 20th-Century Literature, vol. 27, no. 1, Jan. 2003. Octavo. Original yellow wrappers printed in black, edges untrimmed. With 45 half-tone plates as called for (rather than 46 as advertised on the title page). Contemporary bookseller's ticket of Brentano's, New York, on front wrapper verso, and loosely inserted Brentano's advertisement slip for a travel guide to France. Superficial splits to spine, front joint neatly repaired, a little loss of paper at spine ends and head of rear panel, extremities nicked, peripheral toning to wrappers and contents, otherwise clean. A very good copy in the original wrappers.
