JJ GRANDVILLE wants to abandon illustration to join Nancy.

Jean-Jacques GRANDVILLE (1803.1847)

Set of three autograph letters signed to Jules Taschereau.

Nine pages in-4°, very dense, in total. Autograph addresses.

Nancy. October 27, November 19 and 27, 1842.

“I am not talking about colors, brushes, painting, but only about the drawing, its correction, its finesse in which form I judge appropriate to submit it to amateurs. »

Precious and very moving letters from the artist thinking of abandoning his work as an illustrator to devote himself to painting in favor of a job as a drawing teacher in his hometown of Nancy. Affected by the death of his wife Henriette a few weeks earlier, disillusioned, undecided and summoned by the local authorities to make a decision, Grandville sought the advice of his friend Jules Taschereau, co-editor of Fables illustrated by the artist.

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October 27, 1842: “My dear Mr. Taschereau, Here first, in a few lines, is the explanation of this sentence introduced in the little note that I wrote to Mr. ^Fournier and which kept you in suspense. My sister Louise's brother-in-law, obliged to rush to Paris for family matters, and thinking of contacting you for information, asked me for a note to come to your house. He didn't think he should make use of this little note I wrote to you and brought it back to me here. And it is in this interval that your letter reached me. Now, I am grateful now for having given Mr. ^Fournier the quote that you gave me because it fully demonstrates to you that I did not think I had to wait until I had news from you to give you information. mine; on the side of duty, I am therefore in good standing. However, it was not out of obligation that I had written to you so promptly, but I had eagerly seized the opportunity to demonstrate to you again that I was not neglecting your friendship, and in this respect I do not want to not copy here the terms of this unfortunate post, unfortunate because it is the cause of the length of this preambulatory explanation.

What can I tell you now about my provincial existence, my family life. You have, my dear sir, put your finger on the wound. It still hurts to the touch. As for the material, mechanical and artistic part of this life, I avoid as much as possible dinners and other long meals, invitations, solicitations, occasions of gluttony. I play around as much as possible with Ms. ^Voïart , in order to avoid the obligation to take them from museums to chapels... and I believe I will end up getting caught up in this very difficult game. As for art, I paint. Would you believe it, would you believe it. I am at the head of two oil sketches ... and as I write to you, I think that the last one is capable of drying in the living room of my brother who does not save the wood that the town hall grants. So I was thinking of finishing this epistle sooner rather than later, to arm myself with my brushes with which I challenge you to make me return to ideas for illustrations, for a long time (please share this in your turn with Mr. ^Hetzel and Fournier). Really if you only want to see this as a pure and simple joke, you are wrong, it is very serious that I try my hand at [?] my great hobby horse, this great hobby horse, chat between us such pleasant and lively discussions.

Besides, if I still found only a great distraction, only a temporary diversion of my sad ideas in this new occupation, I would applaud myself for my courage and my persistence , and you should, my dear Mr. ^Taschereau , you should, far from laughing about it, applaud me and praise me for this proud resolution. I feel better that I need to be supported in the face of the new difficulties that I encounter in this new path, in the handling of the paintbrush . Hay then, of the imagination of burdens, of the light mind. A beautiful paste, and the calm of the province, this is the realization of the happiness of a great painter, if happiness exists anywhere, if it can be the part of someone, of anyone.

But sorry, I'm writing in a room without a fire, the cold is getting to my feet, I'm going to abruptly close my letter and my desk, but not without thanking you for your excellent bulletin which transported me to my home in the capital and brought before my eyes all the objects which must still interest me, with as much art and truth as a daguerreotype print. I am delighted that the caresses of my poor cat can somewhat compensate Louise for the painful task of going down and climbing six flights of stairs every day. I plan to thank her when I return. This word will provoke from you, if you still have the opportunity to write to me, a question... when is this return scheduled... it absolutely depends on the completion of my two drafts, my two copies. However, if I saw that I had to go too far beyond the first 10 to 12 days of November, I would resign myself to abandoning them to their unfortunate status [missing word] and taking them to Paris at the risk of [?] nose and beard of Mrs the engraver-publishers… 

I only received news of my son from you and I haven't had any since your letter. I fill this gap with the confident thought that he is still in good health and well cared for. I already feel a great impatience to point out on her pale face the effects of good breastfeeding and those excellent walks you tell me about.

Maurisset (how can I take care of this) does he get out of trouble happily and to the satisfaction of Mr. ^Fournier . ^Did Mr. Old Nick have a good ending (not as we understand it in my pious family) and you, my dear Mr. ^Taschereau , are you coping well with the rigors of the cold, the boredom of political debates and feature articles – and finally the absence of rooms. It's been 3 weeks since I read a newspaper. O selfish province, vegetative and atrophying, but sweet to the soul and to the rest of the body... Forgive me for my babbling and a thousand friendships, a thousand thanks, a thousand affectionate hand squeezes and finally all yours from the heart. JJ. Grandville. »

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November 19, 1842: “Dear Sir and friend, We have already arrived well beyond the deadline that I had assigned to my return to Paris and yet I am not yet thinking of packing my trunks; and we don't want to hear for a moment about departure here. However, barring an almost impossible circumstance, I am determined not to stay in Nancy next month, and therefore to embark definitively for the capital in the last days of this month.

And yet, parodying Montaigne, I could say to you, not: what do I know? but: what do I do? Nothing, or at least, of the very bad work torn that I am in every direction by the thousand and one visits to make, to receive or to return which take away from me all thought of work, of heart, of all business (and I am not taking into account, note this carefully here, the lunches, dinners and suppers of which the number is incalculable and the length indefinite; you know the province and its charming and satisfying leisure activities; 

So when I count the days that have passed since I received your letter, I cannot believe that I could have gone so long without writing to you again and that I was not able to find a good hour or two to inform myself again of what is happening with me and with you, people and things which, despite what I have just said about them, do not cease to constantly preoccupy me, because in truth it is not the [?] which alone would have this power to to make all these things lose sight and out of the mind; in the front line is my poor little man, give me some, please , my dear Mr. ^Taschereau , give me some new and good news, the nurse's term, which expired on the 9th last not been paid, would you take care of having him remit this amount; by whom, by Rose because I suppose that faithful to her instructions and not imitating my example she must be back in the rue des St Pères and has relieved your excellent Louise of her guard. The providence of cats or more precisely of ci-devant cats . I am truly ashamed of not having addressed a single word to my poor son's godmother and it would be a great result and an effect of your exquisite and immense kindness to apologize to her with a little word. In principle I did not write to her for fear of forcing her to give a response that I knew she did not have time to give me; this is the basis of my justification for her. Please adorn it with your diplomatic [?] and perhaps get him to write me a note yourself.

I will now ask you how you tolerated such sudden variations in temperature, passing successively from dry to soft and from spring to winter. It was even these premature colds which made me, like a real spiral, withdraw my initial desires into my Lorraine shell; very narrow, very limited spiral in which I find it difficult to extend myself or to lengthen myself. By the way, if I told you that there is an infernal plot afoot here to take over the place of curator of the Nancy museum, occupied by a former cook, a drawing teacher. 1° that the municipal council, pushed to its limits by a commission made up of ten members who want to lead it, in this case, sees itself obliged to put this place out to competition. That nevertheless the influential members of this municipal council while recognizing the smallness of the emoluments testify to the desire not to see this place accepted, by pardoning me from the competition while the acting head of the commission asks me for my opinion on the program of this same competition, which requires no less than the surgical and anatomical capacities of a Marx, combined with the [?] of an Ingres and the feelings of a Schefler, of a Lacroix to give to the chair of drawing of Nancy the gigantic proportions of the school of Rome and subsequently the Callots, Claude Lorraine, Pierre, Charles… Paul, Jacques and many Jean Jean.

You know my worried, uncertain, groping, indeterminate character ; judge my position when I see at the end of all this the possibility [?] vigorously the guides and the driver's whip, and of creating for myself the prospect of a sweet and calm residence in Lorraine with the reservation however of going soak again in the springs and the artistic river of the Seine... but on the other hand we would have to climb on the back of the present conservative, boldly or furtively enter his bed which he gently makes for his nephew and push him into the alley and by the means succeed in a single place the two places of curator and professor which as I told you are distinct, but we would have to say goodbye absolutely to all illustration , and especially to the patient Mr. ^Fournier , to the 'kind Old Nick at the moment when wisdom pushes him into the cells, to M ^rs Meissonier, Gérard Seguin, Fillion, to JH Pléiade, great artists, finally say goodbye to Philipon, to Curner, the explorers and exploiters distributors of genius to so much the delivery and finally leave, delivered to their tools, a horrible thing to think, M ^rs Laisné, Brugnot, Barban etc. etc.

I mix jokes into all this but truly at the heart of this matter there is a very serious question of artistic existence to aim for, intertwined with that of paternal duties, and with affections, with memories which throw me into very great perplexity; sometimes I want to rush into the arena that opens up and sometimes I resolve to remain a spectator of the camp and only gain from the fight, from the assault, the little critical remarks and observations that could be useful to me in the future; When am I right, when am I wise? It would take more than the narrow limits of a letter to explain to you here all these contradictory reasons so that you can give me a very direct opinion, very wise and judicious advice such as you always know how to give except when you do not not take the love of art into account .

Many apologies, dear Mr. ^Taschereau , for the length of this epistle, which you can read at your leisure and which, I think, testifies to the pleasure I have in speaking with you. My father-in-law has not received the latest deliveries of animals which he nevertheless sees displayed among our merchants, which breaks his heart and jumps out at him... Will the shoemakers always be the worst shod? So add this kindness to the others and ask for Mr. ^Jules Hetzel to whom I say hello a thousand times as well as to Mr. ^Fournier who always allows terrible prints to be made in which the shadows are pushed to the blackest and the finesse [? ] To you in my heart, a thousand affectionate friendships. JJ. Grv.

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November 27, 1842: “My dear Mr. Taschereau, Our letters having crossed each other, served each other as answers, in all points, also, I thought when receiving yours, having no more reason to write to you when a question that I submitted to you, half joking, half seriously speaking, represents itself again under a totally different and serious aspect, so let me return to the charge (no pun intended) and despite the awareness I have of to tire yourself with the obligation of an answer on a matter that you did not consider worthy of your attention or your anger, allow me to remind you perhaps a little too long (including this preamble) of this question which has become of the most serious nature for me and for which I request your opinions and advice. My laziness would have been much better suited to not [?] speaking again, believe me, and I even have some merit in writing to you about it at such length, that is my first excuse. I quickly get to the facts (thinking of lawyer Petitgean).

A few days ago, the members of the municipal council united by a generous spirit at the museum commission offered me this professorship in the vacant drawing chair in Nancy (now distinct from that of the museum curator) without competition with salaries of 2,600 to 800 ^F , including accommodation adjoining the museum . Until the expected day when this place, being united with that of the curator, would receive emoluments of 3,800 to 900 ^F. But reasoning in the hypothesis of the present, let us first deal with this pecuniary question, which, if it should not be the main one, always comes first, today, in logical order. You know, my dear Mr. Taschereau, that the savings I have been able to make can amount to 1,500 pounds of income […] I would be required to teach around sixty young people, every day, in a town of province, for one or two hours, the elementary principles as well as the subtleties of the art of drawing and painting . What a fallacy you are saying and what nonsense... wait, it is so as not to have to hear this word pronounced that I stop and consult, and really after very deep reflections, after an appeal also to the judgment of my friends devoted, of my interested and disinterested family, I find myself in such a state that I need very strong objections to prevent me from giving in to all the truly wise reasons that I would have for accepting this position.

I move on to other considerations, those of my child's health is a major one, because according to all the doctors I have consulted it would be a great pleasure if he spent the first years of his childhood here under the hygienic report. I will not tell you anything about the certainty of care that would be guaranteed to him in my family, that goes without saying. Placed at the head of the commission as with any artistic company and enterprise, I could use two leaves of one month each, if not to connect my relationships as an illustrator, at least to follow, as I told you, the course of the art (and that of the stock market if necessary).

Returning to teaching, think of all the time that would remain for me, no longer perhaps to enter into competition with our Meissonier, Garant and tutti quanti, but to reinforce through quiet reflection, through calm study what I have not yet been able to implement until now, pressed by the needs of existence and the drive, the fatal roll of industrial and destructive artistic speculation . I am not talking about colors, brushes, painting, but only about the drawing, its correction, its finesse in which form I judge to submit it to amateurs in the following. To this you add, the errors of optics, of imagination, the annoyances, the pettiness, the jealousies, etc. shrinking, incessant poverty of the province, true Lilliputian miseries at all times. I feel them and I weigh them, and I admit they have a lot to do with my hesitation, they are the weight that will perhaps cause the tray to be removed to Paris. Come on, have a little more patience, my dear Mr. ^Taschereau . See your Paris, you don't even have the patience or the time to read me, despite the importance of the question?[…]

Rejected in the capital, here I am again in the necessity of satisfying all these expensive needs, struggling with duties, publishers, fashion, rents, rivals and taxes, at the mercy of engravers and in the hands addicted to speculation, or at least in those no less diabolical and tenacious of the bookstore using my name and my pencil without measure, without pity as well as without result and often without fruit. Because on what does this result of always commercial, never artistic enterprises depend? what new guarantee, in terms of interest (since it must be called by its name) would I have not to dispose of my poor little knowledge, without benefit or without great glory? This matter is all the more delicate to deal with since I have to bring here recent examples, a necessary, almost forced continuation of this type of enterprise, of these bookstore affairs which in your opinion are nothing less than ruinous in general for interested parties; and what other field of exploitation is however open to me today in the vicious circle where circumstances, events, things (and perhaps advisors) have locked me from man to animal by the ^Mr. 's chisel ... This is forever my glorious lot and my immortality ; and when to these reasons I add the painful, cruel memories that await me, in this place where I lived and loved the absence of family, the worry, the boredom of a new existence; the disgust and bitterness of this same existence without interest devoid of attachment where the very fear of a new affection whatever it may be is a subject of worry, is formidable, in short, as for that, I cannot write about the fatigue of a fight in a small arena, without new glory and without assured profit because, you agree, what I could do from now on will add nothing to my modest fame and maintaining it is perhaps even more difficult to Paris, because here buried alive, you doing nothing to increase or continue it, I can die without risk of alienating it at least […]

The Parisians, and you in the lead, dear M ^r and friend, make no distinction between the province and the poles; anyone who lives outside Paris is, for you, a Hottentot or a Huron […] relations with Nancy and Paris are only too easy and constant. The time for decentralization has come, the overflow from the capital must overflow into the provinces? It is finally an opportunity which will not be found later, they say , in my life. I have never smelled the paintings and sketches of the great masters so closely as since my stay here , nor appreciated so well the value of the spirit of Mrs. ^Old N… and xxx, nor finally understood so strongly the necessity of escape the murderous chisels of Ms. ^BBRJSH and the overly mechanistic laziness of Ms. ^Aristide and Fournier.

Finally, thanks to the paper, I will finish, but first, please, combine your opinion with that of this Mr. ^Fournier , my late printer, and that of Mr. Hetzel, my former persecutor. I really need, for myself and for others, powerful and conclusive arguments to combat the attraction (or the crazy and wise idea) that I find in settling completely here. It goes without saying that beforehand, after your response received accepting or refuting , I will always have to embark again to arrange my affairs in Paris and this in the very first days of December. Please let me know, dear sir, as soon as possible your response which will be of great weight to me in this difficult circumstance, which you will want to convince yourself of by the length of this letter and the objections that I have just submitted to you. Besides, the commission is waiting for my program and my ultimatum. A thousand affectionate friendships. JJ. Grandville. »