ABSURDIST ART OF J.J. GRANDVILLE -- Cartoon Portfolio [1827-1844] (Comic Book Art)

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Eric Jackson Ñ„ PUBLISHER: Deighton Ñ„ EDITOR: Jonni Dramana

Art Grandville

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[1827-1844]

FRANCE’S

MOST REVERED AND REVILED ARTIST... !!! EVER !!!

Absurdist Art of J.J.

WORLDWIDE R.I.P.ress TOUR® TM

CARTOON PORTFOLIO [1827-1844]

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1 ST PRINTING

HISTORY R.I.P.ress Presents: EDITION of 750 ________________________ ____________________________________________ [ THE ART THAT LINKED CLASSICISM TO ROMANTICISM! ] ______________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ _____ RATED G

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Absurdist Art of

J.J. Grandville

Cartoon Portfolio [1827-1844] R.I.P.ress Presents “ABSURDIST ART OF J.J. GRANDVILLE – CARTOON PORTFOLIO 1827-1844”. ©℗ 2020 WORLDWIDE R.I.P.ress TOUR® HISTORY EDITION of 750 copies. FIRST PRINTING. Published by RAMROD INTERNATIONAL PRESS™ (R.I.P.ress™), Ybor City, Florida

33605-2737, U.S.A. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED®. Artist: J.J. Grandville. Concept Designer, Co-Essayist-Layout Artist & Compilation Historian: Eric Jackson. Drawing Curator, Formatter, Co-Essayist-Layout Artist, Colorist (p. 30-31), Editor & Publisher: Deighton. Assistant Layout Artist & Assistant Editor: Jonni Dramana. All Artwork by J.J. Grandville is Public Domain and not subject to Copyright protection. Selected plates Courtesy of Tome Press (now-defunct, a Division of Caliber Press) & BDG Architects. This Original Publication © & TM by Deighton & R.I.P.ress & may may not be copied, distributed or re-sold without expressed written consent by Eric Jackson, Deighton & R.I.P.ress. Comments: JonniDramana@gmail.com. Info: RamrodInternationalPress@gmail.com.Printedby R.I.P.rintco™,Tampa, Florida,U.S.A.

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RamrodIntenationalPress@gmail.com

Artist:

J.J. Grandville

Concept Designer-Layout Artist-Compilation Historian;

Eric Jackson

Drawing Curator-Layout Artist-Formatter-Editor-Publisher:

Deighton

Assistant Layout Artist-Assistant Editor:

Jonni Dramana

w w w. i s s u u . c o m / r. i . p . re s s

Digitally Enhanced by R.I.P.ress ™ from Artwork by J.J. Grandville Reproduced in Association with Genie-Mix Photography & Lithograph Service (Tulsa, Oklahoma) & BDG Architects (Tampa, Florida) www.issuu.com/r.i.p.ress

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The France of J.J. Grandville

by Eric Jackson, (w/ writing assistants /editors Deighton and Jonni Dramana J.J. Grandville was the pseudonym of Jean Ignace Isidore Gerard, although he often went solely by the single name of Grandville. He was born in Nancy, France in 1803 and very little is known about his early life. His art training began early from his Father (an accomplished painter of miniatures), who encouraged him to experiment with a variety of styles in various formats and media.

In 1820 at the age of 17 he moved to Paris to pursue a professional career in art, arriving during the period between the First and Second Empires. The popular artists of the day were at a stage where they were trying to break from the Classical style that had dominated French art to the newer, more interpretive Romantic style.

Newer painters such as Ingres, Delacroix, Gros, Gerard, and Guerin were leading this movement – Even though their primary study was in the Classical style dictated by the French elite artisans, especially David.

Jacques-Louis David, well known painter of the classics “Oath or the Horatii” and “Death of Marat,” was essentially the dictator of French Art during Napoleon’s reign. Upon finding favor with the Emperor, Napoleon placed him in a position to act as ringmaster of all artistic activity in France. Although David was not known to have abused this privilege, the formation of many artists’ careers were undoubtedly still restricted and influenced by his classical sense.

After David’s influence had diminished (coinciding with Napoleon’s fall), France became a hotbed of artistic growth. Not only were new French artists flocking to Paris, but many foreigners were as well. Great literary figures from the globe joined-up with artists, sculptors, writers, musicians, actors, and virtually anyone who wanted to express themselves in some artistic manner could be found in the salons of Paris. Regulars at these salon parties with whom the young Grandville would associate notable figures such as Balzac, Mary Shelly, Liszt, George Sands, Chopin, Daumier, Dumas and Delacroix.

Grandville struggled early, so decided to content himself with producing lithographs and caricatures rather than devote his talents wholly to painting. It was not until 1827 that he would finally become published.

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\J.J. Grandville’s caricature of a typical gathering at one of the salons. In the foreground is pictured Honore de Balzac on the left and Victor Hugo on the right.

Alexander Dumas is in the left background while composer Franz Liszt is playing the piano, with George Sands and Eugene Delacroix listening-in. These salon gatherings were very popular during the time Grandville was in Paris, and included a wide variety of painters, poets, historians and scientists.

Grandville published a collection of lithographs in 1827 named “Chaque Age ases Plaisirs.” He followed this the next year with another set of lithographs, “Les Dimanches diun Bourgeois de Paris,” and then a colored set in 1829 titled “Les Metamorphoses de Jour.” This third set attracted a tremendous amount of attention due to Grandville’s humorous and exaggerated use of heads and animal characters in an excitingly new manner.

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Anthropomorphic drawings were a popular vehicle for satire and caricature in Grandville’s times, as the use of animals and/or plants could graphically depict certain personality traits or relationships – without the need to be explicitly spelled-out.

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These two later engravings by Grandville depicted his reaction to the brand-new (at that time), astonishing THEORY OF EVOLUTION by Charles Darwin. In the mid-1800’s, Darwinism was often discussed and a hotlydebated topic at social gatherings, and even considered by many to be heretical, if not sinful, to believe in such notions of creationism.

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Caricatures

His two journals, La Caricature and Le Charivari, were immensely popular with the Parisians. Grandville became a regular contributor until the journals were finally suppressed in 1835 and forced to stop publishing. After they folded, Grandville next illustrated several books before returning to the style he developed and popularized during his tenure on these critical, literary magazines. His caricature work highlights many of these earliest published examples of “comic books,” and original copies are considered to be quite valuable today, even in poor and incomplete conditions.

Grandville became famous in Paris social circles after he joined the art staff of Charles Philipon in 1828. The journals produced promoted a thinly-veiled, anti Royalist attitude, and some of the cartoonists were even jailed for their satirical (and derogatory) illustrations.

One of his most notable colleagues on staff with Grandville who contributed to Philipon’s journals was Honore Daumier. Although Daumier has now garnered a reputation as one of the finest painters of the 19th century, he actually earned his living drawing caricatures.

Daumier was not as fierce in his stand against the Royalists though, and he sided with neither the Classicists nor the Romantics, “skewering” them both equally.

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La Vie Publique et Privee des Animaux The Public and Private Life of Animals (1842)

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After his short stint of illustrating books, most notably “Gulliver’s Travels” and “Robinson Crusoe,” Grandville returned to his favourite craft, that of utilizing animals in “humanized” endeavors. This type of work brough him critical acclaim as well as fame, and his return to cartooning was enthusiastically received.

Through the depiction of animals, Grandville could balance on the tightwalk of humor to offset the human miseries of the times – without appearing to be callous or insensitive to the misfortunate. It also enabled him to show many of the ludicrous behaviors of man without attacking a specific person or group.

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Petites Miseres de la vie Humanine Man’s Little Miseries (1843)

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In his Petite Miseres series of lithographs, Grandville avoided his readily identifiable anthropomorphics that had firmly established his career, instead concentrating on the follies and absurdities of everyday life. Although much of his exaggerated workings were subdued during this period, the work still contains characteristics that undeniably establish it “pure� Grandville.

It may be suggested that perhaps at this stage in Grandville’s career, he wanted to display his wide array of illustrative talent without relying on the use of his animals.

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Un Autre Monde Another World (1844) Of all of his works, Un Autre Monde is considered Grandville’s seminal masterpiece. It was his last major collection of drawings, and in it he desired for his fantasy and imagination to just go wherever it wanted to, stating – “I myself claim to act as a guide to myself.” In his introduction to the work, J.J. Grandville asked for protection from Heaven, as an innocent pencil was to begin a journey alone.

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J.J. Grandville had expelled most of his inner demons with his drawings in Un Autre Monde, however, he was still tormented inside. His last major work quite likely indicated his rapidly escalating condition, and after being institutionalized in 1846, Grandville died…declared as “clinically insane.” Some claim that perhaps the insanity had overtaken him even during the period of Autre Monde, thus accounting for the brilliant masterpiece. His was a prototypical case of the razor-thin line that artists often oscillate – between genius and madness. Modern medicine may have been able to help Grandville today, as science reveals most mental illnesses as resulting from a chemical imbalance somewhere within the body. But to many of Grandville’s admirers, that fact that only an insane mind could conceive of such lunacy seems justified. And it is very much a part of his legend.

Although Grandville was extremely popular during his lifetime, influencing a movement that legitimized satirical cartoon art as an artistic, political, and ultimately influential medium, few are wholly aware of the importance of his work today, but many are peripherally exposed.

Much of his art can still be found literally everywhere today nearly 200 years since he first arrived in Paris, always unattributed, in clip art books, music album jackets, magazines, advertisements and such. But few books compile and take a serious, scholarly look at Grandville’s full body of work (as this Absurdist Art of J.J. Grandville - Cartoon Portfolio (1827-1844) respectfully attempts), likely due to his fairly brief career lasting only 17 years, with 8 of those years involved in caricaturing the Paris socialites. Even on this work, Daumier who gained fame later, now overshadows him in this aspect, even though it was Grandville who won acclaim and Daumier was instead dismissed by many at the time.

IT IS unfortunate that perhaps the most fame for which J.J. GRANDVILLE is remembered -other than arguably being the first true “Comic Book” Artist (as proof by his ca. 1820’s LA CARICATURE JOURNAL, or “Graphic Novel,” such to which today’s trade journals and magazines are now referred) -- is left with, is that his work that was the inspiration for SIR JOHN TENNIEL’S endearingly lasting themes for the ALICE IN WONDERLAND book series by LEWIS CARROLL. Although now largely uncredited, GRANDVILLE’S doodles, sketches, drawings, etchings, engravings, lithographs and prints have continuously been viewed throughout history as a “free” artistic backdrop to POP culture. Even 200 years later his work can now still be actively enjoyed today in the widely-played video game AVIARY ATTORNEY and the album artwork of famous rock music bands QUEEN and ALICE IN CHAINS. And although not widely recognized, any critic would be remiss to omit to mention his overall major influences on the SURREALIST and (later) PUNCH Art movements – as well as on longtime GRANDVILLE admirer DEIGHTON, the notable contemporary Architect, Artist and Publisher; as you will excitedly discover in DEIGHTON’S first-ever nationally published Comic Sketch-Books titled FIGURE-SCAPES, SCENE-SCAPES and STACIA IN DEMENTIA----DRAW FRIENDLY! Eric Jackson, with Deighton & Jonni Dramana

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© 2020 R AMROD I NTERNATIONAL P RESS ™ ( R.I.P.ress™) 2 0 2 0 R A M R O D

J.J. GRANDVILLE’S MASTERWORKS:

Cartoon Portfolio

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J.J.[1827-1844] Grandville

1827 – Chaque Age ases Plaisirs 1828 – Les Dimanches diun Bourgeois de Paris 1829 – Les Metamophoses du Jour 1838 – Fables La Fontaine 1839 – Gulliver’s Travels 1840 – Robinson Crusoe 1841 – Animaux Parlants 1842 – Scenes de la Vie Publique et Privee des Animaux 1842 – Les Animax Peints par Eux-memes w w w. i s s u u . c o m / r. i . p . r e s s 1843 – Petites Miseres de la vie Humanine 1844 – Un Autre Monde

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