Fables de Jean de La Fontaine Illustrées
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Authors
Jean de La Fontaine
Issue Date
1929
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Abstract
The special feature of this large (10” x 13”), impressive, and expensive volume consists in its woodcuts colored from several plates. For the 25 fables here, Bodemann counts 17 full-page and 13 partial-page illustrations. There are also numerous initials and endpieces, all on very heavy stock paper. Bodemann writes of expressionistic presentation of animals, iridescent exotic colors, unusual forms, and desert landscape backgrounds. She also questions the illustrations’ relation to text. This is the same question I would raise about the impressive work twenty years earlier by Detmold. The frontispiece is an impressive full-page rendition of “The Bulls and the Frog.” Jouve’s color work may be at its best in WC (11). Several illustrations are simple and strong, like FS (25), Perhaps the “unusual forms” referred to above refers to elements like the repetitive bars and patterns at work not only in the frontispiece but in “Heron” (39). Jouve seems to favor large, dark, dramatic scenes, as in LM (43) and “The Rat and the Elephant” (55). Among the endpieces, my favorite is the exquisite vulture on 51. This has to be one of the more impressive books in the collection, made possible by the second Dillon Foundation grant several years ago. Thank you!
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Publisher
Philippe Gonin