Illustration: Felix Lorioux's Le Buffon des Enfants

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see reason number 3 on our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for links to more great posts about children's book illustrators.


Here's another post about an artist you've never heard of before, but you'll never forget once you look at his work! My pal Tony "Superslice" Mora gave me this book as a birthday gift. It's a real treasure.

Felix Lorioux was one of France's best loved artists, but he was a humble, quiet man who did little to promote himself beyond his home country. He was born in 1872 and began as a fashion designer. But his childlike sense of wonder led him to a career as a children's book illustrator. Walt Disney was impressed with his abilities and hired him to illustrate books for the French market based on Mickey Mouse and the Silly Symphonies. It has been said that a Lorioux illustration of a goose in a sailor suit may have even been the inspiration for Donald Duck. Around 1934, Disney revoked the contract and brought the work in house. Presumably, Walt felt that Lorioux's illustrations were "off model" and wanted to standardize the look of the books featuring his characters. Ultimately, it was Disney's loss, not Lorioux's.


Lorioux went on to illustrate definitive editions of Perrault's Fairy Tales, Don Quixote, the Fables of La Fontaine and Robinson Crusoe. However, he was most at home painting delicate watercolors of the birds, flowers and insects in his garden. He imagined fantastic worlds populated by these little creatures. This book, "Le Buffon des Enfants: Les Insectes de Chez Nous" is one of his greatest works. Tony was fortunate enough to stumble across a deluxe edition from 1946 that was limited to only 2000 copies. The print quality is astounding. Lorioux's books are rarely seen in the United States. If there are any readers of this blog in France, we would appreciate information on this amazing artist, and scans of any of his work in your collection.

SELECTED ILLUSTRATIONS FROM
LE BUFFON DES ENFANTS













I don't have room on the blog to reproduce this entire book, but check out the way Lorioux incorporates his watercolors into the text of the book...


Over the years, many animated cartoons have been set in the tiny world of insects... Fleischer's Mr. Bug Goes To Town and Disney's "Woodland Cafe" and "The Grasshopper and the Ants" spring immediately to mind. There have been several recent CGI features in this sort of setting as well, and none of them comes anywhere close to the appeal and striking uniqueness of Lorioux's paintings (or those of Feodor Rojankovsky). Animation is a visual medium. Design matters.

If you found this to be useful, see also... Rojankovsky's Frog Went A-Courtin' / Tibor Gergely's A Day In The Jungle, Gustaf Tenggren's The Little Trapper, Uncle Remus Stories Part One and Part Two, Little Verses Part One, Part Two and The New Golden Song Book Part One, Part Two and Part Three, and Huckleberry Hound Builds A House.

Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

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