[Victorian Web Home —> Visual Arts —> Illustration —> A Sentimental Journey —> Next]
The Country Dance
Tony Johannot
Picard
1857
Engraving on wood
5.6 cm high by x 4.5 cm wide, vignetted
Tailpiece for "The Grace" in A Sentimental Journey (1857), facing page 207.
[Click on image to enlarge it and mouse over text for links.]
Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham.
It was not till the middle of the second dance, when, from some pauses in the movements, wherein they all seemed to look up, I fancied I could distinguish an elevation of spirit different from that which is the cause or the effect of simple jollity. In a word, I thought I beheld Religion mixing in the dance: — but, as I had never seen her so engaged, I should have look’d upon it now as one of the illusions of an imagination which is eternally misleading me, had not the old man, as soon as the dance ended, said, that this was their constant way; and that all his life long he had made it a rule, after supper was over, to call out his family to dance and rejoice; believing, he said, that a cheerful and contented mind was the best sort of thanks to heaven that an illiterate peasant could pay, —
"Or a learned prelate either," said I. [pp. 207-08]
In the previous, full-page illustration, Johannot isolates the young peasant husband and his wife, as the others (including the elders and Yorick to the left, before the flower-covered lintel of the cottage) pause to admire their lithe forms and vigorous footing of the dance. The tailpiece, contrasts depicts the ballet-like, fluid movements of the extended family, with a focus on the flowing draperies of the young women and minimizing the presence of their male partners. The graceful movements suggest the conception of "Religion mixing in the dance" (208) in a visualisation of Yorick's reverie.
Left: The original Stohard copper-plate engraving which influenced later illustrators' interpretations of the peasant family's after-dinner dance, The Grace (1792). Right: Jacque and Fussell's wood-engraving focusses on the activity of the dancers, conveying a greater sense of exuberance than the 1792 copper-plate engraving of the old fiddler: The Grace (1841).
Sterne, Laurence. A Sentimental Journey through France and Italy. With 100 illustrations by Tony Johannot. London: Willoughby, 1857.
Last modified 30 September 2018