Börsenblatt für den Deutschen Buchhandel-Frankfurter Ausgabe-Nr. 61, 31. Juli 1987: Aus dem Antiquariat 1987, N. 7, including Die Fabeln von La Fontaine in zwei frühen illustrierten Ausgaben
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1987
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Book, Whole
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Abstract
Winkelmann contrasts the approach and social context of two early illustrators of La Fontaine's fables. Before getting to them, she looks at La Fontaine's place in the fable tradition. He combines the ancient, school, children-oriented Latin-French prose tradition of fable and the recent emblematic tradition as entertainment for adults preceded by a proverbial moral; both traditions had grown up in the humanistic movement. The combination of versification and fictionality allowed La Fontaine to move fable from rhetoric to poetry, relax the emphasis on brevity, and avoid having to state a moral. He moved away from the strictly moral direction by his creative, spirited, detail-happy mode of narrating. Chauveau illustrated the original Barbin edition of six books in 1668 with copper engravings 5.5x7cm above the fable title. Two further editions came in the same and following year. The fourth edition (1678/9) was extended to include two volumes of new fables, presumably Books VII-XI; Chauveau had conceived a part of these illustrations, but he died in 1676, and people in his studio had to finish the job. The publisher Barbin added a fifth volume (Book XII) in 1693/4, with illustrations done by former colleagues of Chauveau. This five volume cheaveau edition was a beloved publication until about 1710, mostly with Chauveau's original copper plates. After 1720 there were few and in the 1800's none. About 1750 the French book illustration market was booming, and taste was changing. Caron (1745), Oudry (1755-9), Fressard (1765-75), Vivier (1787), Dien (1796), Blanchard (1797) and others created illustrations for at least a part of La Fontaine. Only Oudry's work fell outside the pattern of smaller works; his plates each took a page. For 80 years his work was popular, sometimes with the original plates but mostly with smaller copies. The artistic works contrast. Cheaveau wanted to remain true to the text. He chose a humble execution of the project and did not want to distract from the text. He got all the creatures mentioned by La Fontaine into the picture, even if it took picturing two scenes at once. Protagonists were routinely put into the foreground. The price of his approach is a certain lifelessness and lack of movement. The characters pose lost in themselves and do not engage the spectator. The characters are meant to be impressive shortened text-formulas. Oudry's illustrations, originally meant as plans for tapestries, are lavish, in decorative court interiors and delicately balanced landscapes. Oudry took the text as occasion for his own compositions, sometimes distanced from the literal text. He was a better animal-drawer than Chauveau, and like him he wanted to be true to nature. But he often puts them in lively, even theatrical poses. He gets us to the border crossing between animal and human. The book during Chauveau's time (Louis XIV) was a secondary cultural form; people were giving themselves to other kinds of activity around the court. Besides, Louis had implemented strict laws about book production. By the middle of the 18th century, the book was more important. People were reading and reading to each other. Good notes, including bibliography, and a few adequate illustrations.
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Dr. Karl H. Pressler, München
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3139 (Access ID)