Champfleury écrivain chercheur (review)

This volume is a sign of the revival of interest in Champfleury that has been taking place in recent years. Largely self-taught, he became 'chef des collections' at the Sèvres museum from 1872 until his death. However, he remains best known for his writings on realism and for his prose fiction. A number of the essays focus on these matters and emphasize the extent to which Champfleury, far from advocating a form of realism that sought to provide an almost exact reproduction of reality, insisted instead on the artist's role in interpreting and transforming the world around him. Champfleury enjoyed pastiche and parody — techniques too often mistakenly associated with Romanticism rather than with Realism — and displayed a certain playfulness and humour that reflected a willingness to maintain a critical distance with regard to realism as theory. The contributions by Jean-Marie Seillan and Charles Grivel persuasively point up the interesting discrepancy between theory and practice. Champfleury cannot be pigeon-holed as realist writer of rather variable quality. In a text such as Les Excentriques he revealed a fondness for bizarre ideas and extravagant individuals. In Les Chats he produced an immensely popular compendium for the growing number of pet lovers among his contemporaries. It is a pleasure to discover that a number of the contributions examine the broader range of Champfleury's activities. He pioneered the serious study of cartoons and caricature. He was an avid collector of French ceramics of the revolutionary period. This willingness to accord value to items that had previously been disdained by the establishment was part of a broader attempt on his behalf to redefine what constituted popular culture in France. Perhaps the most interesting essay in this collection is that by Brigitte Louichon on Les Bourgeois de Molinchart, in which she discusses how Champfleury used the central metaphor of collecting as a way of caricaturing French provincial life. An increasing number of Champfleury's works are back in print. This handsomely produced volume is an encouragement to readers to look again at his achievement.