DOI issue:
No. 336 (March 1921)
DOI article:Some French toys of to-day
DOI Page / Citation link: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21392#0122
SOME FRENCH TOYS OF TO-DAY
cubist toy figures. de-
signed by francis jourdain
home as they are in the alluring surround-
ings which the up-to-date toy-seller is an
adept in providing. The design, a blend of
realism and artistic interpretation, will
stimulate the child's imagination, its sense
of humour and capacity for perception far
better than the crude renderings favoured
by the toy-maker of yore, 000
Another type of toys which calls for
special notice is the miniature furniture.
Simple, beautifully decorated examples
produced by the same artists are far more
satisfactory, from every point of view, than
the elaborate, costly reproductions of
current types of furniture that not long ago
were the only substitute for worsely de-
signed and even more coarsely adjusted
rubbish. Particularly charming are the toy
crockery sets, from which many a grown-
up might be tempted to cull some choice
bit to serve as ash tray or to grace the
trinket-shelf, 0 0 0 0 0
106
Far different in spirit, Francis Jourdain's
toys partake of the same qualities in no less
degree. They comprise a number of
games in which the principle of such old
favourites as the Game of Goose, Halma,
and others is ingeniously renovated. How
novel the delight of using, instead of
pawns or counters, quaint little wooden
cottages, or birds, or rabbits, or weird
grinning puppets in infinite variety! The
time-honoured box of bricks appears in a
new incarnation, in which every brick is
designed so as to enable the child to build
cottages that stare and grin and roll their
eyes and show their teeth as in fairy-tales.
Cubism applying for its right of citizenship
in the nursery will find no opponents when
it appears in the shape of Pouf and Couic,
travellers along a new kind of goose-board,
or in the constructional game ".The
Cubist," which provides the infant car-
toonist with inexhaustible material.
Another striking instance of humour is
afforded by the same artist's Becassine, the
Market - woman, whose head, a plain
wooden ball with five dabs of paint for
" becassine,the market-woman "
(sweetmeat box). designed
by francis jourdain
cubist toy figures. de-
signed by francis jourdain
home as they are in the alluring surround-
ings which the up-to-date toy-seller is an
adept in providing. The design, a blend of
realism and artistic interpretation, will
stimulate the child's imagination, its sense
of humour and capacity for perception far
better than the crude renderings favoured
by the toy-maker of yore, 000
Another type of toys which calls for
special notice is the miniature furniture.
Simple, beautifully decorated examples
produced by the same artists are far more
satisfactory, from every point of view, than
the elaborate, costly reproductions of
current types of furniture that not long ago
were the only substitute for worsely de-
signed and even more coarsely adjusted
rubbish. Particularly charming are the toy
crockery sets, from which many a grown-
up might be tempted to cull some choice
bit to serve as ash tray or to grace the
trinket-shelf, 0 0 0 0 0
106
Far different in spirit, Francis Jourdain's
toys partake of the same qualities in no less
degree. They comprise a number of
games in which the principle of such old
favourites as the Game of Goose, Halma,
and others is ingeniously renovated. How
novel the delight of using, instead of
pawns or counters, quaint little wooden
cottages, or birds, or rabbits, or weird
grinning puppets in infinite variety! The
time-honoured box of bricks appears in a
new incarnation, in which every brick is
designed so as to enable the child to build
cottages that stare and grin and roll their
eyes and show their teeth as in fairy-tales.
Cubism applying for its right of citizenship
in the nursery will find no opponents when
it appears in the shape of Pouf and Couic,
travellers along a new kind of goose-board,
or in the constructional game ".The
Cubist," which provides the infant car-
toonist with inexhaustible material.
Another striking instance of humour is
afforded by the same artist's Becassine, the
Market - woman, whose head, a plain
wooden ball with five dabs of paint for
" becassine,the market-woman "
(sweetmeat box). designed
by francis jourdain