Grandville’s Seven of Wands - a taster for you
My goal for this blog is to search out the unusual in the world of the tarot cards. Although I’ll discuss the history of the cards, and their use both for game playing and for divination, I’ll always try to include something a little different. Like this:
19th century French illustrator, J.J. Grandville was known as the “Father of Surrealism”. Grandville had a strong influence on artists such as Tenniel, illustrator of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. Jean Ignace Isidore Gérard Grandville (so why JJ? - don’t ask me) was born on Sept 15, 1803 and died in Paris on Mar 17, 1874. Gérard was a French caricaturist, fantasist, illustrator and graphic artist noted for his inventive political and social satire. Like many of the famous caricaturists of the period, Grandville worked for Charles Philipon, contributing drawings to the periodicals La Caricature and Le Charivari. His satirical series included Métamorphoses du Jour (Present-day Metamorphoses, 1829), Un Autre Monde (Another World, 1844), and Scènes de la Vie Privée et Publique des Animaux (1842 - Public and Private Life of Animals).
He created the illustrations for Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels (1838), Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1840) and one of several different French translations of Cervantes’ Don Quixote (1848). Grandville’s fantastic part-human, part-animal figures probably influenced Sir John Tenniel’s illustrations for Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland. Bibliography: Appelbaum, Stanley, ed., Bizarreries and Fantasies of Grandville (1974).
Take a look at the reviews of Stanley Appelbaum’s book Bizarreries and Fantasies of Grandville on Amazon.com to get a feel for Grandville.
Interesting stuff, thanks. I’d only ever come across Grandville as the source of the illustrators for Queen’s last album before Freddie Mercury died, “Innuendo”. I never knew he was a satirist.
Now you mention it, the influence on Tenniel’s illustrations is very clear.
Maybe the “JJ” as his initials were just part of the surrealism!
I might have guessed you’d bring a new slant to the discussion, Dave. You don’t have any links to online information about that album, do you? Especially if they include the illustration.
I’ve just had an idea about the JJ: that’s nearly how the French pronounce GG. Shades of Tintin’s creator ‘Hergé’, the initials of whose real name were RG.
psychicchatonline…
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… can you hear me in your head, realdeal?