Introduction Notes Charles Macilly (1 results)

Quarter Morocco. Condition: Very Good Plus. Grasset, Eugene (illustrator). Limited First Edition. 4to - over 9¾ - 12" tall. One of 200 unnumbered copies on Papier de Chine. Georgeous color illustrations by Grasset and printed in chromotypography by Charles Grillot. A retelling of the "Chanson de Geste" of Charlemagne and his barons, this is one of the most important and influential illustrated books of the Art Nouveau era. Ray, in the Art of French Illustration, describes the book as epochal! Gillot persuaded Grasset to furnish "Merovingian" style designs to showcase chromolithographic book illustration. As stunning as the illustrations proper is how they were woven in and incorporated into borders and set on the page. See Ray, The Art of French Illustrated Book 357, 464, 465. Ironically, Grasset himself was ambivalent about the whole process of book illustration, which he found onerous in how it forced him to confine his visual ideas to the spatial limitations of the page. His splendid results, though, were surely the product of how he approached the project. He allegedly began with the borders and worked in, sometimes augmenting these with further decoration, and others, with full illustration, and generally, elements of both. The illustrations track the story very well and indeed, the book can be read using the illustrations alone, and ignoring the text. As far as influence, one sees it clearly in the wonderful series of young adult biographies issued by Librairie Furne (the Louis', Richelieu, Napoleon, etc.), many works of Job, etc. etc. Joints rubbed. A few minor spots on brown morocco. Original wrappers bound in.