speaking of bookbinding....

Victor Émile Prouvé (1858-1943)

art nouveau, impressionism, jugensdstil... while the work from this time might continue to thrill, it does not shock. but it's informative to remember that it once did. victor prouvé was an artist of many talents. friends with fellow nancy resident gallé, prouvé painted the definitive painting of him.

drawing, dress design, printmaking and architecture were all among his talents.

but today we will look mainly at some of his efforts at bookbinding design. i don't know enough about bookbinding to understand the various elements, but perhaps one of our experts could enlighten me. prouvé is given credit for these bindings, but always someone else is also credited. i'm not clear on this division of labor.

for example, this binding of salammbo by flaubert is credited to prouvé, but my little section out of an old book, the flowering of art nouveau, also says that it was executed by rené wiener. i'll assume that that is like watanabe publishing yoshida's prints?

"it makes full use of the different ways of treating leather: inlay, engraving, gilding, and glazing. wiener adroitly uses the design of the veil of tanit to connect the boards with the spine. this salammbo is one of the earliest examples of a binding treated as a picture. instead of merely illustrating a theme from the story, the binding tries to present the essential spirit of flaubert's novel. orthodox craftsmen were critical of these pictorial bindings , which they considered to be a betrayal of the art of the book."

prouvé also designed bookbinding on two volumes of louis gonse's publication japanese art. for this project, prouvé worked with camille martin, whose bookbinding work we have seen before in a drawing for this cover for which its inspiration is clear when seen in a comparison with a particular print by utamaro.