EXTRACTS: Illustrators issue 29 © 2019 The Book Palace (96 PAGES in Full edition)

62 J. J. Grandville The nineteenth century caricaturist and illustrator inspired everyone from animators to fantasy artists. He was an artist with a sharp sense of humour who fought against censorship and was a workhorse throughout his less-than-positive life- time as Diego Cordoba informs us. Although being perhaps one of the most important and influential illustrators of all time, this artist has been regretfully forgotten throughout the years. However, his ideas we still see being used by many other illustrators, animators and cartoonists. While today we take for granted that funny animals in caroons were an invention of Walt Disney and other American animators, the fact is that these creators owe a great deal to a French cartoonist from the 19th century known as Jean-Jacques Grandville or J. J. Grandville. His series known as ‘Les Métamorphoses du Jour’ (‘The Metamorphosis of the Day’) featuring animals dressed and behaving like human beings might have been the first time such illustrations were ever shown. Although Grandville’s cartoons were done very realistically, it was their humorous aspect that got the attention of 20th century cartoonists and animators such as Disney, Tex Avery and Chuck Jones right down to today’s digital animators. Not only that, the books Grandville illustrated would later be an influence to the greatest illustrator of all time: Gustave Doré. Born as Jean Ignace Isidore Gérard in 1803 inNancy, France, froman artistic and theatrical family, Grandville would grow up under various identities. As a child he would be known by all the members of his family as “Adolphe”, the name of a brother born dead prior to him. It was while living in Nancy that Adolphe received his first artistic lessons from his father who worked in theatres as a miniaturist painter. Along with the Gérard couple and their four sons lived a grandmother, who had been an actress at the Palais-Royal and played before the Polish King Stanislas, who was established in France once his daughter married Louis XV. The stories and anecdotes she told her grandchildren would fascinate the young Adolphe. Once Adolphe decided to become an artist, drawing the members of his family and the street spectacles, he adopted the first name ‘Jean-Jacques’ and added ‘Grandville’ which his grandparents had used earlier when members of a theatrical troupe. Unlike other more mature artists who tried to show as accurately as possible the human figure, Grandville deformed and mocked it instead. Here, we see the first stages of a future caricaturist, inspired by the theatre, especially those featuring ‘Punch and Judy’ and the ‘Harlequin’. Simultaneously, this form of caricature was heavily influenced by those coming from England, where this art form was very popular at the time. He had also begun signing some of his drawings as “J. J. Grandville”. ABOVE: Self-portrait, graphite on paper. BELOW: Bird Doctor (ca. 1829). FACING PAGE TOP: In the Court of the Lion King , pen and ink on paper. FACING PAGE BOTTOM: Ombres Portées , illustration for the journal La Caricature , wherein various French politicians are shown with their animal counterparts in their shadows, an idea that is still used to this day by some cartoonists.