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La Fleur and Yorick enter the outskirts of a village
Tony Johannot
J. Brevier
1857
Engraving on wood
11 cm high by x 9 cm wide, vignetted
Thirty-eighth illustration for A Sentimental Journey (1857), page 56.
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Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
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As La Fleur went the whole tour of France and Italy with me, and will be often upon the stage, I must interest the reader a little further in his behalf, by saying, that I had never less reason to repent of the impulses which generally do determine me, than in regard to this fellow;—he was a faithful, affectionate, simple soul as ever trudged after the heels of a philosopher; and, notwithstanding his talents of drum beating and spatterdash-making, which, though very good in themselves, happened to be of no great service to me, yet was I hourly recompensed by the festivity of his temper; — it supplied all defects: — I had a constant resource in his looks in all difficulties and distresses of my own — I was going to have added of his too; but La Fleur was out of the reach of every thing. . . . ["Montreuil," pp. 56-57]
Whether by carriage or on foot, La Fleur and Yorick will be constant companions throughout France and Italy. In other respects, however, Johnannot is not illustrating Yorick's discussion of La Fleur's character; rather, he depicts the master and servant crossing a ravine on a shaky wooden bridge as they make their way to an obscure village. The 1857 illustration exemplifies the aspect of the Sublime in the 18th c. theory of the Picturesque, often applied to Alpine scenery:
The term was in popular use throughout the eighteenth century, but its genealogy as an aesthetic theory can be traced back to Edmund Burke's Philosophical Enquiry into our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757). Burke divided objects into two main categories according to our response to them. Objects which appealed to our reason by their regularity, smoothness, order and proportion, and thus gave pleasure, were beautiful. Objects which excited [32/33] the emotions of awe or terror through their vastness, irregularity, grandeur or wild disorder were sublime.Objects which excited the emotions of awe or terror through their vastness, irregularity, grandeur or wild disorder were sublime. [Robert Hewison, Chapter 2, "Ruskin and the Picturesque"]
Sterne, Laurence. A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy. With 100 illustrations by Tony Johannot. London: Willoughby, 1857.
Last modified 22 September 2018