JF Ptak Science Books  Quick Post

I’ve been writing and thinking about J.J. Grandville (see the opening post in this series here  on his proto-Surrealist work) and then took another look at the ending illustration (the last of over 200) of the great proto-Surrealist’s Un Autre Monde (1844).  Initially I thought that the word was “Ici” (“Here”), meaning that the end had been reached, Here, and that the arts (represented by the writing instruments)  were giving thanks for a job well done and completed.  On closer inspection, there’s more to it than I thought. (This may be already very well-trod ground, but its new to me–my apologies if this is elementary to any art history folks.)

The word isn’t “Ici”–its not even a word.  The letters are the initials of the pseudonymous Grandville, whose true name was Jean Ignace Isidore Gérard, and so wrote the “I” “I” as columns with the “G”erard as the central bit.  And perhaps the little fellow at the top is a pencil, which would have been the tool of choice for Grandville–and so Grandville, the artist, would be on top of the “G”: of his name celebrating his achievement above the other implements of book production (the quill, followed by the pen, the wax stamp (?) and a pocket knife/cutting tool), the artist standing tall above them all.   Or perhaps not.