The Variety Of Canes Jean Ignace Isidore Grandville (1803-1847) Cane

Jean Ignace Isidore GRANDVILLE (1803-1847) the variety of canes in a natural wooden frame delivery 30 euros Grandville, or Jean-Jacques Grandville, pseudonym of Jean Ignace Isidore Gérard, born September 13, 1803 in Nancy and died March 17, 1847 in Vanves, is a French caricaturist, illustrator and lithographer. Jean Ignace Isidore Gérard was born in Nancy, in eastern France, into a family of artists and actors. A man of multiple identities, he will always be called Adolphe by his family, from the first name of a young brother who died two months before his birth: "This is how he sings this long duet with death which is born of a bereaved baptism , modulated throughout his life in the various registers of the works he created and the fates he suffered. » Ernest Bussière, bust of Grandville, 1893, Parc de la Pépinière, Nancy. It was in Nancy that he grew up and received his first drawing lessons from his father, an amateur musician but above all a miniaturist painter “for the head, the flower or the landscape”. Misery then reigned in Nancy and life in the Gérard household was not easy: in addition to the couple and their four children, there lived an ancestor, Marie-Anne, a former "King's actress" whose nostalgic stories relating to splendours of the court of Stanislas fascinate. The theater was not enough for the subsistence of the Gérard spouses - Grandville's paternal grandparents - who settled in Place Royale and ran one of the first cafés in Nancy, the Café de la Comédie. Hippolyte, Adolphe's brother, poured into literature and adopted the pseudonym "Gérard Grandville". As an artist, Adolphe adopted Jean-Jacques as his first name and also took over the name "Grandville" from his grandparents. He therefore signs JJ Grandville1. He seems to follow in his father's footsteps and endeavors to draw the members of his family, the spectacle of the street and, gradually, emancipating himself from the inculcated principles, makes a specialty of "disfiguring with malice these faces that the adult puts all his art to figure. His talent as a caricaturist showed up early. The opposition to the father has something to do with this desire for transgression, but we can also see in it the overcoming of simple learning. The influence of the art of the theater certainly enters there for something else, but it is necessary to evoke the history of art, strongly imprinted in Nancy by the art of Callot who made known the Arlequin, the Pantalon and the Polichinelle. Finally, fashion and the influence of caricature, which is very popular in England, play a part. Grandville began by copying the models of caricatures he found in the new satirical press such as Le Nain jaune. He forms a liberal, anticlerical opinion. As early as 1820, he designed hybrid creatures, half-human, half-animal, which would quickly become the hallmark of his talent. With the drawing, he readily associates puns tinged with irony: Le Canard, a drawing illustrating the “ducks” of the clarinet; The Wind Quintet evoking the expression "blow like an ox", etc. The romantic current begins to impose itself in France at this time and does not fail to influence the artist. Lithography, a new printing and representation technique, was successful and contributed significantly to the glory of Grandville. The call of the capital is felt: the departure will be supported by the miniaturist painter Léon Larue (1785-1834), known under the name of Mansion, who detects Grandville's talent and brings him to his Parisian studio. Shortly after his arrival in Paris, Grandville published a collection of lithographs entitled Les Tribulations de la petiteproprieté. He continued his work with Les Plaisirs de tout age and La Sibylle des salons, a 52-card tarot deck that was eventually signed by Mansion. But it was with Les Métamorphoses du jour (1828-29), a series of 70 scenes in which human characters are represented with the head of an animal in situation for a role in the human comedy, that he really made known. These drawings are remarkable for the extraordinary skill of drawing human expressions transposed onto an animal figure. Physiognomy, an intellectual current inspired by the work of Lavater, Cuvier, Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire and Gall postulates the analogy between facial features, the complexion of an individual and his character, his personality. This thesis and analogous currents (craniology, phrenology, etc.) then in vogue had an undeniable impact on Grandville's thought and work. The Metamorphoses of the day have, from their first appearance, aroused imitations from other artists, which Grandville does not fail to complain about, but these plagiarisms testify to the influence that his work has on the evolution of fantastic illustration. The success of these works led various periodicals such as La Silhouette, L'Artiste, La Caricature, Le Charivari to hire him as a contributor. His political cartoons, characterized by a marvelous fruitfulness of satirical inspiration, soon aroused enthusiasm. His satirical plates are charges against contemporaries or attacks against the July Monarchy. His drawings displeased Adolphe Thiers, who enacted, in 1835, under the reign of Louis-Philippe, a law requiring prior authorization for the publication of drawings and caricatures. After this restoration of censorship, Grandville, viscerally attached to freedom of the press, felt deeply affected by the incessant attacks by the police; he was even searched and the disorderly search carried out by the gendarmes shocked him deeply. In a very personal caricature, he will remember it by figuring the gendarmes in the form of annoying flies invading his home.