The Goncourt Brothers and the Language of Etching

The Goncourt Brothers and the Language of Etching reassesses Edmond and Jules de Goncourts' work as both authors and etchers, arguing that their firsthand experience with printmaking fundamentally shaped their prose. Known as novelists, diarists, art historians, and collectors, the Goncourt brothers were also printmakers, producing nearly 100 etchings from 1859 until Jules' untimely death in 1870. Over the same decade, the brothers were active participants in the French etching revival, a movement that brought together artists and writers to promote etching as a cutting-edge print medium and theorize printmaking in new ways.

Using an interdisciplinary approach that centers the embodied process of both etching and writing, this book identifies new intersections between word and image in the Goncourts' wide-ranging work. From the brothers' etched illustrations for their groundbreaking history of eighteenth-century French art, to their efforts to translate techniques from printmaking into their experimental prose in their novels, each chapter offers a close analysis of the Goncourts' texts and prints. This book not only brings critical attention to the brothers' understudied work as printmakers, but also provides new insight into larger issues in nineteenth-century France, including debates on the purpose and value of creative labor and pressing questions about reproduction, imitation, and originality in art. Ultimately, this work opens further avenues within studies of literature and the visual arts, illuminating the significant and often surprising links between printmaking and writing.