Honoring one of its missions, which consists of spreading the Lebanese culture and protecting our cultural legacy beyond its premises and academic curriculum, Université Antonine has invested time, effort and means to contribute to the revival of one of Gibran Khalil Gibran’s little-known book: Twenty Drawings.
Twenty Drawings, December 2014 - Introduction
“The timeless in you is aware of life's timelessness. And knows that yesterday is but today's memory and tomorrow is today's dream.†The Prophet
There are no better words than his to write the first sentences portraying the aspirations behind the new edition of this book.
Published for the first time in 1919, in different trade prints and a limited edition of one hundred copies autographed by the author, Twenty Drawings is a collection of some of Gibran’s illustrations: a color frontispiece and nineteen black-and-white drawings. This compilation is said to be the only book designed by Gibran himself, up to the smallest detail.
The republishing of Twenty Drawings started with the involved parties on a journey to find twelve original color illustrations out of the twenty. Two of them were generously shared by the Telfair Museum of Art while the other ten came from the Gibran Museum collection. The substitution of the black-and-white drawings with the color ones constitutes the single enhancement made to the 1919 limited edition of this book.
The Gibran National Committee entrusted the Lebanese painter Brahim Samaha to orchestrate this venture. Sharing the same vision, Université Antonine brings life to this book again to revive Gibran’s ideologies and spirituality. This collaboration between the Gibran National Committee and Université Antonine is a testament to the the enduring efforts to preserve the artistic heritage and philosophical thought of one of Lebanon’s greatest treasures: Gibran Khalil Gibran.
