Taxile Delord
Taxile Delord was a French author and botanist who lived from 1815 to 1877. He is most renowned for his 1867 work, *Les Fleurs animées* (The Flowers Personified), which features a whimsical narrative in which plants transform into women, each reflecting the eccentricities of their floral counterparts. This work serves not only as a satire of French sentimentality towards nature but also as an informative exploration of botany, enhanced by vivid descriptions and illustrations. The illustrations, created by the celebrated artist J. J. Grandville, are particularly esteemed and are noted for their graphic clarity, contributing to the book's legacy as a significant piece of French Romantic art. In addition to *Les Fleurs animées*, Delord co-authored the 1855 publication *Messieurs les cosaques*, further establishing himself as a respected scholar of botany in Europe. Despite his broader contributions, the acclaim for *Les Fleurs animées* often overshadows his other literary efforts. Delord's work reflects a unique intersection of literature, art, and scientific inquiry.
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Subject Terms
Taxile Delord
Writer
- Born: 1815
- Died: 1877
Biography
Taxile Delord lived in France between 1815 and 1877. Delord provided the text for the 1867 Les Fleurs animées (the flowers personified), which narrated a story of plants that morph into women complete with eccentric personalities to match their floral nature. While principally meant to satirize the quaint notion of French sentimentality toward plant life, it also works as a history of botany and as a guidebook in part because of its informative pictures and vivid descriptions. That book is actually best known for its illustrations by the insane Surrealist artist Jean Ignace Isidore Gérard, better known as J. J. Grandville, who gained widespread artistic fame for his Métamorphoses du jour, which included humorous caricatures of people with animal heads rather than human ones to suit their personalities and demeanors. The illustrations within Delord’s Les Fleurs animées were so highly regarded that many art critics have hailed them as some of the better-presented and more graphic and lucid drawings of the French Romantic period. While this book greatly overshadows the rest of his work, Delord also wrote with Clément Caraguel and Louis Huart in the 1855 publication, Messieurs les cosaques: Relation charivarique, comique, et surtout véridique des hauts faits des Russes en Orient, and was acclaimed as a true scholar of botany throughout Europe during the course of his life.
