(for whatever reason, I’m having problems putting up images; I’ll figure this out soon)
Jean de La Fontaine and Marc Chagall’s Fables and Paul Eluard and Joan Miro’s A Toute Epreuve are both interesting examples of the Livre d’Artiste movement, considering the way they incorporate text and visuals.
First, as a quick overview of each of the books – since Fables was filled with well-known stories (which were adapted into French by Fontaine), those buying it weren’t getting it for the text. It was published for art collectors, and featured Marc Chagall’s Primitivist etchings, which appear as full pages of monochrome illustrations that almost look like they were drawn with a thick paintbrush. He certainly didn’t skimp out on illustrations; it looks like there’s one for every fable in each volume. The images appear side-by-side with dark italicized text aligned in the center of the page; the words don’t stand out compared to the images, even though the stories are apparently beautifully written.
A Toute Epreuve, with poetry and publication by Eluard and illustrations by Miro, unites the text and images. The woodcuts and prints use bright streaks of color that swirl around the page, guiding the eye around the text, sometimes even drawing the eye away from the poetry. While the images aren’t Primitivist, they have a childlike quality to them, somewhat similar to Chagall’s illustrations.
Both of these books follow a quote written in Henry Matisse’s Jazz – the text accompanies the visuals, unlike most books. I think, however, that these books vary in their degrees of success in collaboration. Although I’d say the illustrations are the focus of A Toute Epreuve, they can’t stand alone without the text to dance and play around. In other words, the poetry contextualizes the illustrations, not necessarily through narrative, but through visuals. Considering that Eluard was both poet and publisher, he could display the collaboration as he pleased, probably to the satisfaction of both parties, and the result is a book with a deep unity between its different aspects.
Fables, on the other hand, is less successful in its unity with text and image. The images don’t flow into the words as they do in A Toute Epreuve, but coexist at each other’s side. Each can stand without the other, and do. Fontaine’s fables were universal in France long before these books were published. Meanwhile, when I tried looking for images from the 1952 book, it was easy for me to find the etchings but just about impossible for me to find a full page with both the illustration and text. Still, when they’re both placed into the same book, Chagall’s etchings are given a narrative contextualization through Fontaine’s stories.