Épinal prints were prints on popular subjects rendered in bright sharp colours, sold in

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan area ...

in the 19th century. They owe their name to the fact that the first publisher of such images — — having been born in

Épinal Épinal (; german: Spinal) is a commune in northeastern France and the prefecture of the Vosges department. Geography The commune has a land area of . It is situated on the river Moselle, south of Nancy. Épinal station has rail connecti ...

, named the printing house he founded in 1796, . The expression ''image d'Épinal'' has become proverbial in French and refers to an emphatically traditionalist and naïve depiction of something, showing only its good aspects. The prints were also a regular point of comparison for criticizing paintings by

Courbet Jean Désiré Gustave Courbet ( , , ; 10 June 1819 – 31 December 1877) was a French painter who led the Realism movement in 19th-century French painting. Committed to painting only what he could see, he rejected academic convention and t ...

- notably his '' Burial at Ornans'' and ' - and

Manet A wireless ad hoc network (WANET) or mobile ad hoc network (MANET) is a decentralized type of wireless network. The network is ad hoc because it does not rely on a pre-existing infrastructure, such as routers in wired networks or access points ...

. Acknowledging the proximity of some of Manet's works, like his Fifer,

Zola Zola may refer to: People * Zola (name), a list of people with either the surname or given name * Zola (musician) (born 1977), South African entertainer * Zola (rapper), French rapper * Émile Zola, a major nineteenth-century French writer Plac ...

turned the comparison into praise.

Image Gallery

File:Épinal - Cendrillon 12.jpg, Cendrillon la pantoufle. File:Épinal - La Petite aux grelots titre.jpg, La Petite aux grelots. File:Épinal - L’Oiseau bleu 08.jpg, L’Oiseau bleu. File:Épinal - Cendrillon 14.jpg, Trouver chaussure à son pied. File:Histoire du Petit Chaperon-Rouge (...) btv1b69380391.jpg, Histoire du Petit Chaperon-Rouge

External link

Printmaking Épinal {{Printmaking-stub