There are exhibitions that educate, exhibitions that surprise… and then there are exhibitions that transform the way you see the world. Stones and Reveries: The Poetry and Minerals of Roger Caillois, opening this fall at L’ÉCOLE, School of Jewelry Arts in Paris, belongs unmistakably to the latter category. This exceptional journey, created in partnership with the Muséum national d’histoire naturelle, invites visitors into an intimate, dreamlike universe where minerals speak, poetry takes shape, and nature reveals herself as a true artist.
Roger Caillois — brilliant writer, poet, essayist, traveler and member of the Académie Française — was never content to simply look at stones. He listened to them. He contemplated them as one contemplates a painting or a myth. For more than 25 years, Caillois collected agates, dendrites, fluorites, ruin marbles and picture stones whose patterns evoked storms, landscapes, spirits, wounds, masks, and entire imaginary worlds. His stones became companions, mirrors, and muses, inspiring some of the most visionary pages of twentieth-century literature, including his celebrated “The Writing of Stones.”
Now, for the first time, nearly 200 minerals from Caillois’s legendary collection — many of which have never been displayed before — are reunited with the writer’s texts, original manuscripts, and newly rediscovered writings. Thanks to the meticulous curatorship of Pr. François Farges, this exhibition creates an extraordinary dialogue between science and poetry, matter and imagination.
Walking through the galleries of L’ÉCOLE, visitors will encounter stones that resemble entire skies, mountains, silhouettes and cosmic scenes, carved by nature over millions of years. Caillois called these natural wonders “forgotten alphabets” and “messageless hieroglyphs” — signs that invite interpretation without demanding it. They are artworks created without intention, yet rich with meaning. They blur the line between geological formation and artistic creation, raising a fascinating question: where does nature end, and where does art begin?
But the exhibition goes further. It also opens the door to one of the most exciting literary discoveries of recent years: Pierres anagogiques, a manuscript nearly finished at the time of Caillois’s death in 1978 and long believed lost. Unearthed in 2023 in the archives of the Médiathèque de Vichy, these texts explore the spiritual and mystical dimensions of stones, revealing a more introspective Caillois — one who saw minerals not only as images, but as guides. For the first time, these writings will be displayed alongside the very stones that inspired them.
To enrich the experience, L’ÉCOLE has designed an immersive scenography: projections, sound recordings of Caillois’s poetic excerpts, guided tours, calligram workshops, and a complete cultural program for adults and children. The result is more than an exhibition — it is a sensory and intellectual journey that invites each visitor to slow down, to contemplate, and to let their imagination wander freely.
Stones and Reveries is a celebration of beauty, curiosity, and the profound connections between the worlds of jewelry, mineralogy, literature, and dream. It is also a tribute to Caillois’s boundless vision: the belief that the most astonishing forms of poetry are sometimes found not in books, but in the silent depths of the earth.
For anyone passionate about gems, art, culture, or the mysteries of nature, this exhibition is nothing short of a must-see. If you find yourself in Paris between November and March, let Roger Caillois guide you through his mineral universe — a universe where each stone becomes a revelation.
And you may never look at minerals the same way again.
“Stones and Reveries: The Poetry and Minerals of Roger Caillois”
November 6, 2025-March 29, 2026
L’ÉCOLE, School of Jewelry Arts,
With the support of Van Cleef & Arpels
Hôtel de Mercy-Argenteau
16 bis boulevard Montmartre, Paris 9
Free admission, upon reservation
