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Beyond the Fairy Tales: Discover a World of French Literary Elegance

At the heart of my upcoming monograph, Designing Women: the Iconography of Charles Perrault (Peter Lang), is a radical re-reading of Perrault—not as mere fairy tale author, but as a theorist of design. His poetic treatises and allegorical interiors reveal a visual rhetoric that champions the femme forte and reclaims the sacred semiotics of women’s speech. What does it mean when a ceiling becomes a moral argument? Or a decorative scheme a feminist intervention?

Discover More About the Book

Why glass? Why wax? 👠🪞

In Cendrillon, Perrault doesn’t choose materials lightly.

Glass wasn’t fragile fantasy—it was the substance of mirrors, lenses, and truth.
Wax wasn’t soft romance—it authenticated identity, sealed authority, recorded likeness.

Together, they form a symbolic portrait:
the slipper doesn’t change Cinderella—
it recognizes her.

This reflection comes from a new blog post, written ahead of my February talk at the Stirling Maxwell Centre.

✨ What in you is real enough to leave a true impression?

From the Marie Antoinette exhibition at the V&A @vamuseum

I didn’t understand Chapter 2 until I wore the gown.

At the Fêtes Galantes at Versailles, Perrault’s idea of honnêteté came into focus:
appearance as ethics, taste as authority, women as the refined critics of culture.

In Cendrillon and beyond, surface isn’t deception—it’s method.

Read the full post:
https://www.jenniferdavistaylor.com/post/i-didn-t-understand-chapter-2-until-i-wore-the-gown

#versaillespalace #perrault #cinderella #arthistory #embodiedresearch #fairytales

Why does Bluebeard have two morals?

In an upcoming February talk, I will explore how Perrault’s paired moralités work like two sides of a coin—linked to his work designing medals, devices, and inscriptions during the Querelle des Anciens et des Modernes.

From roses and royal bloodlines to debates over French vs. Latin, these fairy‑tale morals quietly stage an argument about women, curiosity, language, and power.

✨ More details soon
#Bluebeard #CharlesPerrault #EarlyModernFrance #FairyTales #VisualCulture #QuerelleDesFemmes

A teaser for Project 2 just went live!
Explore the first glimpse of my latest research on the material construction of Eve by the father of French fairy tales.

https://www.jenniferdavistaylor.com/post/constructing-eve-rethinking-fairy-tale-heroines-through-the-printing-press

#EarlyModernFrance #VisualCulture #FairyTales #AcademicBlog

The 17th-century domestic interior wasn’t just decorative—it was ideological.
A container for elegant conversations negotiated between bodies, art forms, and space.
In early modern France, it spoke volumes without ever raising its voice.
Blog: https://www.jenniferdavistaylor.com/post/the-room-that-spoke-charles-perrault-s-cabinet-des-beaux-arts

A painter inspires a poet; a poet inspires a painter. Here is one of a series of collaborations between painter Marina Leo and poet Federico Faloppa that unfolded over seven years. Here is a rough translations of the poem:

Possible Worlds
Don't confine yourself to the whirlpools of meaning
to the answers of those who have no questions
to the soothing smell of incense.
Trust in the air that expands
after storms, in the unjust tears
of the righteous, in the songs of cetaceans
on autumn nights.
Shake off your remorse
the hardened smell of ports: start sailing again.

Color registration, Early Modern style. @cityandguilds

Last Day of Summer School at London City and Guilds. Triptych after Coypel | Soft Ground Etching
This piece reconstructs a 17th-century drawing by Noël Coypel through layered printmaking. I used soft ground and a charcoal stick over tissue to separate his red underdrawing (structure) from the black detailing (refinement).

By printing both plates in registration, I could study how Coypel redrew his central figures—especially Eve—to anchor the composition. Through timed acid baths and careful line-deepening, I explored the way this biblical scene of Original Sin was visually built.

Eve’s figure becomes the pictorial and compositional center of the transgression—a reminder of how women’s bodies have historically carried the weight of moral storytelling.

This is a study in drawing as construction, etching as excavation, and sin as visual architecture.
@cityandguilds

More from the diptych process—see previous post for part one: “Open at the Tree of Knowledge”
Red for day—innocence, exposure, curiosity.
Indigo for night—grief, insight, surrender.

Week-long City & Guilds of London Historical Etching School:
Drawing from a Coypel study of Eve (pictured), I began experimenting with soft ground and aquatint—charcoal, pencil, and paintbrush meeting zinc plate. The result: a diptych exploring duality and transformation.

Snaps from Embodied Creative Research Mentoring Workshop @uortypography with the MA students! Thank you to everyone who participated. I hope the mind mapping, found poems, and story sticks brought you closer to your design practice “Why.” Special thanks to @suzytutchell for bringing Stitches of Self to this new context.

Here is the final interview with @suzytutchell in which we look at felt landscapes. The story sticks are translated into a weave of experience that reintegrates the linear story into the non verbal matrix of lived experience.

Here is interview 2 with @suzytutchell in which she goes into a specific story stick created for Stitches of Self by an Iranian emigree.

Here is the first of three short interviews with Suzy Tutchell, artist educator who designed Stitches of Self, a healing initiative for displaced women/refugees. Here she describes Story Sticks as a means to recapture threads of experience. @suzytutchell

Step 1 of developing a new piece: The Scarlet Letter. Recreating a matrix from a typeface designed for Louis XIV using polymer and and ultraviolet photographic process. Using rag paper and a two pull press to generate the 17th century effect. The designer’s grid and original geometric markers are preserved. Special thanks to master printer @geoffwyeth and @uortypography Historical Presses Workshop

With the help of @geoffwyeth and the Historical Presses Workshop experimentation with 17century Two-pull press to respond creatively to a 17th century retelling of Genesis. How long does a story and a reputation last? Whose word makes a more lasting impression? In this case, it made no difference who pulled the press. Geoff’s inking and mine were sexless on the page.

Collective ceramic art installation. To celebrate 100 years, the University of Reading will install an art work of peace doves highlighting language diversity and sanctuary. Made by community members on Mother Language Day (UNESCO) @readingunimodernlang

Highlights from The Great Mughals: Art, Architecture and Opulence at the @vamuseum

From Masters of the Pop-Up Book: Treasures of the Einberg Collection

Highlights from Brazil! Brazil! The Birth of Modernism at the Royal Academy London

Part III: The final part of live interview with London-based artist Katya Bosky!

Part II: Live interview with London-based artist Katya Bosky.

Part I: Live interview with London-based artist Katya Bosky who, while showing pieces of recent ceramic work, reveals the motivations and techniques that unify her art.

Porcelain sculpture by Katya Gerasimora Bosky, an anti-war memorial: « And remember, if someone like me, like us—the girl made a round gesture towards a sea of people with crutches, in wheelchairs, with prosthetic limbs, children who lost their parents and parents who lost their children.—if we are strong enough to carry on, so must you be. »
-from the artist’s statement

Dawn Chorus by Gaby Mlynarczyk. Based on her extensive beach cleaning experience and encounters with distressed sea life, Gaby creates a vision of how these creatures with adapt and conquer human detritus in the habitat, triumphing in the future.

Abyss by Ningxin Kong (mixed media) I loved the implied weight of the dress, symbolic of the expectations placed on women, perhaps especially in rural and traditional parts of the world, and how these expectations can be tied to survival.

The Shape of Discipline (mixed media) by Siyan Zheng

Healing Sands Metalwork by Fatima AlQassimi. The subtle shifting of desert sand in rain translated into sculpture.

Visa Rican Landscape by applied artist Victoria Loyola Healing a break with the past. Ceramic and woven textile

With @fotinistudio at the opening of her new solo show Bridge City Views hosted by @greenville_theatre

Folk art style, Josette Molland of the French Resistance recorded her experiences in a Nazi Labor camp years after she survived.

At Greenville First Fridays with @fotinistudio at Bank Building Studios

Jesse Darling, Turner prize winner, showcases her ability to find the wacky and wonderful potential of ordinary things.

I’m very inspired by @emilielouisegossiaux whose show @queensmuseum displays her sculpture. After a traumatic accident that blinded her, she learned to « see » with her hands and started her art career over again.

Opening this week in London: Galley Kandlhofer presents a new duo exhibition by Richie Culver & Hannah Perry.

Check out « Africa & Byzantium » @metmuseum !

This piece by @krnbrnsn inspired me to make art! Got to revisit it in person today.

Original found object sculpture by anonymous artist located in Greenville,SC

Balanced and muted: Katie Walker at Art Bomb Studios

Blind contour drawing, masking and water color wash
by Darryl Debruhl of @artbombstudios @vonbruhl

Some superior felting and needlework at the studio of Cecilia Ho @feltasticfashion

I love these sensitive architectural portraits by @kat_kristof @beerslondon beerslondon

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Jennifer Davis Taylor | La Chambre Bleue

Beyond the Fairy Tales: Discover a World of French Literary Elegance

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Jennifer Davis Taylor | La Chambre Bleue

Beyond the Fairy Tales: Discover a World of French Literary Elegance

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