Nos Enfants

{click through for larger versions; these images are slightly cropped from
the full page images and the colour saturation has been bumped up a bit}

From one of the greats of children's book illustration, 'Filles et Garçons - Scènes de la Ville et des Champs' presents the second half of twenty scenes** originally published by Hachette in 1887 under the title of 'Nos Enfants'.

This late 19th century book with text by Anatole France features charming frozen moments of childhood in chromolithographs after the watercolour sketches of Louis-Maurice Boutet de Monvel. The book is available from the University of South Carolina Digital Libraries.

Previous posts on Boutet de Monvel:
‣‣‣Vielles Chansons
‣‣‣Illustrated Fables
**Example images from 'Nos Enfants' as originally published, at the Fulltable site.

Gond Glyphs

The illustrations below were scanned from 'Signature - Patterns in Gond Art', edited by Gita Wolf, Bhajju Shyam & Jonathan Yamakami (published by Tara Books).

These are not specifically the patterns mentioned in the book title; rather, they're the inch-wide miniatures or glyphs included on the pages facing the artists' patterns. In fact, the pattern pages are themselves details from these glyphs. So these drawings of animals and trees and so on are each artist's visual explanation for the origin of their individual signature patterns.

"The Gonds are one of India's largest indigenous communities, and art is central to their lives. It is a Gond belief that viewing a good image begets good luck. Originally painted on walls and floors, Gond art has since found its way to paper and canvas. [..]

Their subject matter extends from myths and legends to images of daily life - not only which exists, but also much that is drawn from dreams, memory and imagination. [..]

The singular, most striking thing about these patterns - or 'detailing' as it is known among the Gonds - is the fact that each artist has invented his or her own particular design. This pattern is their 'signature'."

[from Gita Wolf's Foreword]

One of Tara Books' latest offerings, 'Signature - Patterns in Gond Art', is printed by traditional (modern) means as opposed to their usual hand-made paper and silkscreened products. This in no way detracts from the quality of the content and any slightly ropey appearance in the images above is due to the scanning/upscaling. A few of the signature patterns can be seen below (the image itself is a detail from an appendix legend).

Previous posts on Tara Books: The Night Life of Trees & Folk Cats

Tara Books | Amazon

Folk Cats

Images below from: 'I Like Cats' published 2009 by Tara Books.

See the earlier Tara Books post: Night Life of Trees

It was my great good fortune to receive a package from India this week with a further selection of books from the wonderful Chennai publisher Tara Books --- Amazon selection


The images above are from a fun, hand-made book called 'I Love Cats' © Anushka Ravishankar & various artists.

"Sunny cats, sad cats, grinning cats, bad cats, cats with scowls and cats with jowls ... hand bound and silk screened, 'I Like Cats' features a gallery of irresistible feline characters from some of the best-known tribal and folk artists of India"

More (Tara) images and background in a post from January: The Night Life of Trees [update: later post on Tara Books: Gond Glyphs]

About Tara Books:

"Tara Books is an independent publisher of picture books for adults and children based in Chennai, South India. Now in our fifteenth year, we remain a collective of dedicated writers, designers and artists who strive for a union of fine form with rich content. We continue to work with a growing tribe of adventurous people from around the world. Fiercely independent, we publish a select list that straddles diverse genres, offering our readers unusual and rare voices in art and literature." [Twitter | Blog | Facebook]

Hairy Grotesques

Tête de singe souriant
[Smiling monkey's head]

Tête d'un satyre souriant
[Smiling satyr's head]

Tête chevelue et barbue d'un vieillard souriant
[Shaggy, bearded head of a smiling old man]

Tête de singe à la moustache enrubannée
[Monkey's head with ribboned moustache]

Tête d'un satyre aux sourcils levés
[Satyr's head with raised eyebrows]

Tête de faune aux rubans
Ribboned head of faunus*
(or maybe it's just 'creature')

Tête d'un satyre aux cornes nouées
[Satyr's head with tied horns]

Masque feuillagé d'homme grimaçant
[grimacing masked man with foliage]

Tête de satyre à la guirlande
[Satyr with head garland]

(click through for enlarged versions; some of the library stamps have been removed or attenuated)

This striking set of hirsute heads was produced in the second half of the 17th century by a French engraver named François Chauveau. It's as though he has travelled forward in time to select elements from Chewbacca / Planet of the Apes & Star Trek (Worf) to combine with the motif popularised during the Renaissance, the grotesque. So there's a certain charming naivety and abstraction to the works suggesting they may be early versions for a later, more sophisticated, suite of prints perhaps. We don't know the designer so it's hard to say.

Chauveau was a renowned engraver with royal pension and favour among his peers. A selection of more than a hundred and fifty of his prints, covering a wide variety of themes, is available from the Joconde portal, on behalf of a number of contributing French institutions.


Previously (that I can remember offhand) -

• The Genre of the Monstrous
• Fantastic Headdresses

Austro-Hungarian Peoples

Among the small selection of digitised material at the Berlin Museum Art Library is an undated monograph printed by Johann Nepomuk Vernay depicting various peoples of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

The Empire was a Hapsburg Monarchy, incorporating dual parliaments in two capitals (Vienna and Budapest) and existed from 1867 until disintegration as a consequence of WWI by 1918. The vast territory included ethnic groups from (today's) Bosnia, Italy, Czech Republic, Romania, Hungary, Poland, Serbia, Slovenia, Slovakia, Ukraine and Germany.

Judging from the active period of the Austrian printer, Vernay, the book was likely released between 1890 and 1918. The cover title is 'Oesterr:Ungarische Nationalitäten' but the instructional nature of the work is clear from the title page, 'Die Völker der österreichisch-ungarischen Monarchie : für die Jugend' (The Peoples of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy: for youth).

I think all the book illustrations have been posted here, displaying traditional ethnic costumes from the majority of regions listed above : mouseover the images for - in most cases - the German name of the ethnic group depicted.

Via Archivalia.
Previously: costumes | ethnology.