FRENCH LANGUAGE
Come on! I'm an illustrator! But as an illustrator for La Fontaine, that's the detail that changes everything. La Fontaine is really fabulous. I discovered his fables at school and I wonder if I still like them today. And since I had that freedom, I chose the ones I liked best, not necessarily the best known ones, from the imposing production (two hundred and forty fables, after all!) of this great gentleman of French literature. I am far from being the first to illustrate La Fontaine: Grandville, Gustave Doré, Benjamin Rabier, Samivel, (and many others, less well-known...) tried their hand at it long before me.
But, from the outset, I understood that there was one mistake to be avoided absolutely: adding humour to humour. Because the author, the big boss, the chief humorist is him. And certainly not me, for once. Besides, when you are the illustrator of an illustrious person, you put yourself at his service without any jibber-jabber. That's the way I see it. So I tried to respect the indications given by his texts and if I allowed myself a few fantasies, it was because they seemed to me compatible with the general spirit of the fable. I'd like to add that directing these very funny little stories was a real pleasure.
Posterity is often debatable, but not when it makes La Fontaine the No. 1 of French poetry: consider that the most recent of these fables was written more than three hundred years ago and that almost all of its morals have become expressions of our everyday language in the meantime. And that, too, is quite fabulous. Hats off, Mr. La Fontaine!
French language
80 pages / 80 illustrations
Rmn-Grand Palais / Cherche-midi
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