author
J. J. Grandville
1803–1847
Best known for turning animals, objects, and people into witty, dreamlike scenes, this French illustrator and caricaturist helped shape the look of 19th-century satire. His images can feel playful at first glance, then strangely modern the longer you look at them.
2 Audiobooks
Les fleurs animées - Tome 1
by J. J. Grandville
Les fleurs animées - Tome 2
by J. J. Grandville
About the author
Born in Nancy in 1803 as Jean Ignace Isidore Gérard, he came from an artistic and theatrical family and adopted the name Grandville, a stage name used by his grandparents. Trained first by his father, he moved to Paris as a young man and built his reputation as a sharp caricaturist and illustrator.
Grandville became widely known for satirical prints and for drawings published in major French periodicals such as La Caricature and Le Charivari. He also illustrated literary works, including Gulliver's Travels and Robinson Crusoe, and is especially remembered for images that mix human, animal, and fantastical forms with great invention.
Though he died in 1847, Grandville's art has had a long afterlife. Critics and historians have often pointed to the strange freedom of his imagination, and later generations saw in his work an early spark of the surreal and the fantastic.