400th Anniversary of Jean de la Fontaine Fables, Musee Gustave Moreau

 

Julie P. wrote me, “I’d like to see less pastry and more Paris greenery please”. The greeny view 19th century artist Gustave Moreau saw outside his bedroom window in his wonderful museum. This is one of my longish,artsy posts with a lot of links, so you may want to go watch Netflix ☺️

And his multi-functioning bedroom/gallery plus chess set. 

Ivisited the Moreau museum a while back FYI. There are no empty walls. This visit was to see a special collection of his preparatory drawings for a commissioned edition of Les Fables de Jean de la Fontaine. It is the 400th anniversary of his birth 🤸🏾‍♀️🥂🍾🎉🎉

Inside the exhibition, a series of sketches for the tale of the wolf and the crane. Moreau visited The zoological collection at the Jardins des Plants to study the crane. 

Here’s Fontaine’s fable, always with a moral at the end:

A feeding wolf got a small bone stuck in his throat and, in terrible pain, begged the other animals for help, promising a reward. At last the Crane agreed to try and, putting its long bill down the Wolf's throat, loosened the bone and took it out. But when the Crane asked for his reward, the Wolf replied, "You have put your head inside a wolf’s mouth and taken it out again in safety; that ought to be reward enough for you."

I think I prefer 19th century illustrator J.J.Grandville’s version. A much more anthropomorphic version. His figures are  human-like and much wittier. Note even the tablecloth tells a story. 

Moreau’s studies for fable, ‘The Wolf and the Rat’, probably done at the zoo as well.

Not to be left out, another fabulous 19th century illustrator, Gustave Doré, also did a naturalistic lion and petite souris.

And JJ Grandville’s version. The story goes the lion helped the mouse get something to eat by lifting him up on his paw. 

Later on the lion is ensnared in a net trap and the mouse helped him by gnawing through the netting. Why the lion could not do this himself with his much bigger teeth is another story. The moral is basically: size doesn’t matter. There are tons of Youtube videos illustrating all of these de la Fontaine fables in French and english if you’re interested. 

De La Fontaine wrote 243 fables and his statue is in the Jardins des Ranelagh.

The week before, when I visited Palais-Royal, Librairie Delamain’s windows were jammed with posters and new editions celebrating Fontaine’s fables.  Naturally yesterday they were gone. C’est la vie. Inside they had this handsome new version with recolored old engravings + a music CD.

I went across the street to Les Drapeaux de France, where I found all those Napoléon figurines, thinking they would have La Fontaine animals. They did not. But still plenty of fun tin animals that might pass for Fontainesque. 

Meanwhile back inside the musée Moreau, a glass-covered table displays all his art supplies. 

White Porcelain plates were commonly used as palettes and still are. To see his original watercolor box was utterly thrilling.

More Paris greenery for the pastry-adverse. Are you pastry averse? Please share PB with a friend and consider receiving Parisbreakfast letters💌in your mailbox. 

Do you suppose this girl is reading the Fables of de la Fontaine?

                                         🥮🥐🍒🍦❤️🐻🎨🇫🇷🐝☺️💋