Title: Balzac, Grandville, and the rise of book illustration
Description: Examining how the rise of book illustration affected the historic hegemony of the word, Keri Yousif explores the complex literary and artistic relationship between the novelist Honoré de Balzac and the illustrator J. J. Grandville during the French July Monarchy (1830-1848). Both collaborators and rivals, these towering figures struggled for dominance in the Parisian book trade at the height of the Romantic revolution and its immediate aftermath. Both men were social portraitists who collaborated on the influential encyclopedic portrayal of nineteenth-century society, 'les français peints par eux-mêmes'. However, their collaboration soon turned competitive with Grandville's publication of Scènes de la vie privée et publique des animaux, a visual parody of Balzac's Scènes de la vie privée. Yousif investigates Balzac's and Grandville's individual and joint artistic productions in terms of the larger economic and aesthetic struggles within the nineteenth-century arena of cultural production.
Subjects: Illustration of books, Criticism and interpretation, Publishers and publishing, History, Balzac, honore de, 1799-1850, Illustrated books, France, history, 19th century, Art and literature, Literature and society, Book industries and trade, history, French literature, history and criticism, 19th century, France, history, louis phillipe, 1830-1848, Publishers and publishing, france, Publishers and publishing, history, Illustration des livres
Places: France
People: Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850), J. J. Grandville (1803-1847)
Time periods: 19th century