The Man and the Image

"The Man and His Image" is a fable that tells the story of a man who sees his reflection in a pond and becomes enamored with his own image. The man begins to think that his reflection is another person and starts to show off and make gestures to impress him. Eventually, the man jumps into the water to embrace his reflection, but in doing so he loses his own life. The moral of the story is that excessive pride and self-absorption can lead to one's downfall. The fable highlights the dangers of vanity and self-indulgence and suggests that it is important to maintain a healthy sense of humility and self-awareness.

Artist: Jean Ignace Isidore Gérard Grandville
Print Type: Wood Engraving
Date: C1841
Dimensions: 9 1/2 x 5 3/4"
Subject: Fantasy - Fables

Notes & Literature: Jean Ignace Isidore Gerard was a 19th century French illustrator and caricaturist who published under the pseudonym of Grandville. He has been called "the first star of French caricature's great age", and Grandville’s book illustrations described as featuring "elements of the symbolic, dreamlike, and incongruous, and they retain a sense of social commentary." "His perverse vision sought the monster in everyone and took delight in the strangest and most pernicious transfigurement of the human shape ever produced by the Romantic imagination. The anthropomorphic vegetables and zoomorphic figures that populated his cartoons anticipated and influenced the work of generations of cartoonists and illustrators from John Tenniel, to Gustave Doré, to Félicien Rops, and Walt Disney. He has also been called a "proto-surrealist" and was greatly admired by André Breton and others in the movement

Condition Report: Foxing. Verso blank.

Subject References: French Animal Fables France Life Lessons Stock ID 170