Les Fleurs Animées

"Your Majesty, the flowers here present beg you to accept their homage, and to lend a favorable ear to their humble complaint.

For thousands of years we have supplied mankind with their themes of comparison; we alone have given them all their metaphors; indeed, without us poetry could not exist. Men lend to us their virtues and their vices; their good and their bad qualities; and it is time that we should have some experience of what these are.

We are tired of this flower-life. We wish for permission to assume the human form, and to judge, for ourselves, whether that which they say above, of our character, is agreeable to truth."¹

"We pride ourselves on being the first to advance the following aphorism : Flowers are the expression of society."¹

Title pages from JJ Grandville's 'Les Fleurs Animées', 1847 {Volumes 1 & 2}

'Bal' (The Ball)

'Reine Marguerite, Campanule, Fuchsia, Pied d'Alouette, Muguet, Pyramidale, Liseron'

{China Aster, Canterbury Bell (Campanula), Lady's Ear Drop, Larkspur (Delphinum), Lily of the Valley, Pyramidale Bell Flower, Morning Glory}

'Soleil' (Sunflower)

'Aubépine' (Hawthorn)

'Bleuet et Coquelicot' (Cornflower and Poppy)

'Bleuet et Coquelicot' [detail]

Chardon (Thistle)

Capucine (Nasturtium)

Ciguë (Hemlock)

Ciguë [detail]

Rose

'Flèche d'Eau' (Arrowhead)

'Narcisse' (Daffodil)

'Narcisse' [detail]

'Nenuphar' (Water Lily)

'Nenuphar' [detail]

'Retour des Fleurs' (The Flowers Return)

'Retour des Fleurs' [detail]

'Sensitive' (Mimosa)

'Sensitive' [detail]

'Thé et Café' (Tea and Coffee)

'Vigne' (Grape Vine)

'Vigne' [detail]

(All these images have been background-cleaned² and about half have had the colour saturation increased. The illustrations are all cropped from the full pages. Click through to large images; very large versions are also available³)


The delightful caprice of JJ Grandville's imaginative - and posthumously published - series of flower illustrations ensured that 'Les Fleurs Animées' was popularly received in 1847 and reissued and translated many times.

The thing is though, these anthropomorphic figures of apparent whimsical innocence are in fact serving as the visual arm of a satirical work that mocks the sentimentality and effusiveness with which flowers had been portrayed during the romantic era. The text by Taxile Delord is a parody of the style it targets and was intended to sound the death knell for Romanticism*. It also appears to kick out at an over-scientific attitude towards plants during the Enlightenment; at least in the introduction.

• I was moved to snag these examples (from both volumes³) from Missouri Botanical Gardens' Botanicus website - where they were recently posted - because years ago, when I first discovered this wonderful series, I wasn't aware the complete books were available online.
• See: Beverly Seaton's 1995 book, 'The Language of Flowers: A History' [excerpts]
• JJ Grandville works at the Internet Archive.
• The full translated text of 'Les Fleurs Animées'¹. Or here.

¹'Les Fleurs Animées' was translated into English by Nehemiah Cleaveland [as 'The Flowers Personified'] immediately after its original publication. The quotes at the top are most likely OCR machine transcriptions and were slightly edited by me.
²The length of time spent assiduously cleaning these images is a private matter that may or may not be discussed in the future with an OCD therapist, should I ever choose to get one.
³In actual fact, the very large jpeg images - of the title pages and, as I recall, each illustration from volume 2 - for this post were obtained partly from Missouri Botanical Gardens old website ('Volumes'/'Structure' links at the top and then: 'View in Detail'): these very large images are missing for some illustrations at the Botanicus site.