Description
Book SynopsisAs a result of fabricated accounts endlessly repeated since his death, the early nineteenth-century French satirist, J. J.Grandville (180347), is often perceived as being as bizarre as his inventive protosurrealist imagery. With the recent bicentennial of his birth, it is time for a reassessment of this seminal artist based on primary sources. The Diary of J. J. Grandville and the Missouri Album: The Life of an Opposition Caricaturist and Romantic Book Illustrator in Paris under the July Monarchy by Clive F. Getty does just that. This first major study in English of Grandville allows him to speak for himself through a careful examination of his diary, fragments of which are to be found in a previously unexamined album of drawings in the Special Collections of the University of Missouri-Columbia Libraries.An introductory biography situates the artist within the political, social,and cultural climate of France during the Romantic era and the July Monarchy of Louis-Philippe. The main body of the book consists of an annotated catalog of the albums drawings. Since the majority originate from his diaries, they provide valuable new insights into Grandville's life and work, particularly during those years most extensively represented: 1830, 1833, and 1846. An epilogue explores the genesis of the Missouri Album. The biography follows Grandville from his native Nancy to Paris where he first gained fame as a satirist with the human/ animal hybrids of Les Mtamorphoses du jour (182829). After the Revolution of 1830, he produced opposition caricatures for Philipons La Caricature, Le Charivari, and the Association mensuelle. With the establishment of press censorship in 1835, Grandville turned to book illustration, producing such innovative masterpiecesas Scnes de la vie prive et pub-liquedes animaux (1842) and Un autre monde (1844). The biography ends with the unusual circumstances of Grandville's death in 1847 and an analysis of the distorted accounts about the deceased artist and
Trade ReviewJ. J. Grandville's work is central to any understanding of modern Parisian culture during the Romantic Age. His early embrace of lithography, delight in the far reaches of the imagination, and fierce commitment to liberal politics sets him apart from hispeers. Not even Daumier, with his Balzacian wit, perceptive powers of observation, and vigorous and descriptive graphic line could compare to the bohemian-influenced, satiric range of Grandville's pen drawings and lithographs. In many ways, the impudent,whip whirling gnomish figure on the masthead of the satirical journal La Caricature stands as Grandville's self-image: delighting in the masquerade of carnival, he revels in the humiliation of the staid, self-important, bourgeoisie. Clive Getty has already published a ground breaking study of Grandville's drawings, Grandville: Dessins originaux (Nancy, 1986). And now he has turned his encyclopedic knowledge of the artist's life and work to the publication of Grandville's Missouri Album, a little known album of drawings many of them intimate sketches, almost doodles, of initial ideas with excerpts of the artist's diaries. The album gives us insight into the culture and preoccupation of this quintessential Romantic artist, from the social whirl of soires to -- James Cuno, Art Institute of Chicago
J. J. Grandville's work is central to any understanding of modern Parisian culture during the Romantic Age. His early embrace of lithography, delight in the far reaches of the imagination, and fierce commitment to liberal politics sets him apart from his peers. Not even Daumier, with his Balzacian wit, perceptive powers of observation, and vigorous and descriptive graphic line could compare to the bohemian-influenced, satiric range of Grandville's pen drawings and lithographs. In many ways, the impudent,whip whirling gnomish figure on the masthead of the satirical journal La Caricature stands as Grandville's self-image: delighting in the masquerade of carnival, he revels in the humiliation of the staid, self-important, bourgeoisie. Clive Getty has already published a ground breaking study of Grandville's drawings, Grandville: Dessins originaux (Nancy, 1986). And now he has turned his encyclopedic knowledge of the artist's life and work to the publication of Grandville's Missouri Album, a little known album of drawings many of them intimate sketches, almost doodles, of initial ideas with excerpts of the artist's diaries. The album gives us insight into the culture and preoccupation of this quintessential Romantic artist, from the social whirl of soires to the cafe disputes of oppositional politics to visits to the Jardin des Plantes and the Tuileries Gardens. This book makes a most valuable contribution to our understanding of the artistic culture of Paris at the turn of the July Monarchy, and should be read by anyone interested in the world of Balzac, Hugo, and even the emerging Baudelaire. They all intersect in the imaginative universe of J. J. Grandville. -- James Cuno, Art Institute of Chicago
This volume combines a short biography of the life of French caricaturist and book illustrator J.J. Grandville (1803-1847) with a systematic catalog of a previously unexamined album of his drawings from the years 1830 to 1846 in the Special Collections of the U. of Missouri-Columbia Libraries. The album is notable for more than just the drawings in that it also contains a significant number of excerpts from Grandville's diaries and thus allow for a fuller understanding of Grandville's life and work. * Book News, Inc. *
