Les Fables de La Fontaine
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Authors
La Fontaine, Jean de
Issue Date
2021
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Abstract
This book represents a curious redoing of earlier work by Circonflexe published in both 2013 and 2014. That earlier work covered the same gorgeous scissor work of Emmanuel Fornage, but both earlier printings had a special way of putting a page of white paper -- with several forms cut out -- before each scissored scene. One could see through this white page's "windows" forward into portions of the colored scene and backward to the colored page. In this 2021 edition, the cutouts are gone. The white pages have the same forms at the same places, but now they are not windows. They are what one would see on the following page or the previous page if there were a window there. As I wrote of the two earlier printings, this large format (11" x 14¼") book is very impressive! As the closing T of C shows, there are here fifteen of La Fontaine's fables. Each is presented in a sequence of four pages beginning with a blank colored page. The second page presents the fable's title and the faux "windows" described above. A third page presents the text, with the faux windows looking back, as it were, into the beginning colored page. The fourth page presents the decoupage, a large single-colored "Scheerenschnitte" cutout against a background of the first page's color. Several colorful elements are then pasted upon the large cutout. Despite the loss of the cutouts, two things continue to make this book special. The first is each decoupage page. Fornage's sense of color and his gift for design make these artworks glorious! The sheer size of the background cutout gives the artist room to present cultural context with just enough color to let the highlighted scenes stand out. Secondly, each fable is set in one French geographic context, identified in the T of C. One rises from the fable at the bottom of the decoupage into a presentation of the region. For example, the first fable, FS, presents a peasant home in Alsace and offers peasants who live there, with their children and animals. This scheerenschnitte is, by the way, a true exemplar in that it was cut to present matching mirror images around a symmetrical center. Only the pasted-in fox and wolf are not symmetrical. The two pots they lean on are! Among the decoupages, my prizes would go to the simplest, like FS, FC, and OR. The best cutout is surely the lion in LM. What fun! The cover has changed to the FS illustration.
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Publisher
circonflexe
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Identifier
13039 (Access ID)