Travel Book Rome

« Rome inspires anything but indifference: with its light, first of all, but also its special colors, which have cast a kind of progressive spell on me: the facades in shades of ochre, golden yellow, azure and subtle turquoise, not to mention a wide range of reds, each richer than the next. » Rome as portrayed by artist Miles Hyman is like a woman, glimpsed on a street corner, in the shadows of a terrace or on a balcony. Look away for an instant and she’s gone. The city responds to his approach, offering up its beauty. Its inhabitants take precedence over its monuments. « Why did I want to stress the human element of the city? » says Hyman. « Because, for me, the key to the city is the striking contrast between its ephemeral life and the eternal. »

Miles Hyman is an illustrator of periodicals and adapts novels, most of them detective stories. He also writes graphic novels. His illustrations for the graphic version of The Black Dahlia by James Ellroy remain a model of the genre, endorsed by the master himself. Hyman’s lexicon is that of a filmmaker attracted by the mysteries of shadow and light, shots and counter shots, close-ups and broad views. His work has appeared in many newspapers and magazines, among them Libération, Le Monde, The New York Times and The New Yorker.

The Louis Vuitton Travel Book collection is an invitation to real and virtual voyages. In its pages, the illustrations of renowned artists and promising young talents tell the stories of the cities and countries they have visited. The creative worlds on show are highly diverse: during their travels, these artists from various corners of the world were free to choose their mode of expression, from painting and illustration to collage and manga.