Thursday 9 October 2014

Antoine Clouzier


Fig 1 (Above) Antoine Clouzier Red Gravure 1697
Fig 2 (Below) Antoine Clouzier Red Gravure 1697 within page format.


Above is an etching fro Red Riding Hood by Antoine Clouzier from Charles Perrault's 1697 Histoires ou contes du temps passé, avec des moralités: Contes de ma mère l'Oye.
I really like the primitive nature of this wolf, it is a wolf of the imagination not from observation.

This illustration made me aware of how privileged we are today, to have images of wolves at our finger tips and to able to go to a zoo or nature park and see and draw wolves.
I doubt that Antoine Clouzier had ever seen a wolf, for the wolf that he has formulated from his imagination seems to owe a lot to gargoyles and other stone carved bestiaries of architecture.

References:
Fig 1 Clouzier A, pour les Histoires ou Contes du temps passé, Paris, Barbin, 1697 etching. http://iconoconte.hypotheses.org/
Fig 2 Clouzier A, pour les Histoires ou Contes du temps passé, Paris, Barbin, 1697 page from Orestein C 2002, P26, 'Little Red Riding Hood Uncloaked', 
         Basic Books,  New York

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