A new socio-aesthetic approach to literary illustration during the interwar period in France: five case studies

The purpose of this paper is to show the interest of a new socio-aesthetic approach to literary illustration combining art history and Pierre Bourdieu's theory of fields. This methodology, aimed at understanding and modelling this artistic activity during the interwar period in France, is briefly reviewed. The Bourdieusian structure of the field of literary illustration in 1930 is presented. Five books, illustrated by André Masson, Jean-Émile Laboureur, Albert Decaris, Édouard Chimot and Pierre Falké, are then selected, each one being a characteristic example of the productions from a specific area of the field. The five publications have been analysed according to the new approach and a summary of these case studies is proposed, covering the general architecture of the book, the pairing between the author and the artist, the pictorial form of the illustrations, the choice between black and white or colors for the images, the relationship between illustrations and text and the overall critical reception of the book. Global lessons are withdrawn from these case studies.