HonorŽ de Balzac
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In 1896, a major publishing project was completed: the Human Comedy by HonorŽ de Balzac in forty-one volumes. The author had conceived that almost all of his mature fiction could comprise a kind of super-novel, and he edited them after they first appeared to fit together in this manner. Highly-ranked French academic painters were commissioned to illustrate the cycle, and the books are peppered with over 100 plates, exquisitely reproduced using the expensive and very high-fidelity gravure printing process, which has no distracting dot pattern. The French edition was published by Calman-Levy, and the English edition by Roberts Brothers. One can find scaled-back versions from Little, Brown, but the original set is a tall octavo with gilt tops, and was limited to 500 copies. These artists were mostly good choices, since they were trained in the tradition of narrative picture-making, and being French, would have considered this commission an opportunity to honor the great literary realist. [If you're not familiar with the author, Balzac's stories have a similarity to Charles Dickens's fiction, also written in the 1830s and 40s.] There are dramatic tales that revolve around art: in one, a painter burns up his life's masterwork; in another, a great collector is drugged so his competitor can examine his collection. Some of the published images employ stock characters, or rely on the pretty interiors to convey the scene. Those illustrators didn't really understand Balzac, and those works aren't offered in this select group. The author's genius lay in his insights into character, which was always nuanced and subtly contradictory. These faithful illustrations make Balzac's words flesh, and it's a pleasure having these particular versions of the characters occupy one's mind's eye. I hope you enjoy these watercolors; if all they do is inspire you to pick up a volume (or 41) of these rich stories, that's fine too. Roger T. Reed |
