Works
One of his first officially noted works was the first "artist's" label for the famous wine from Château Mouton Rothschild in 1945, in memory of the World War II victory over Germany.
Jullian's book illustrations are witty, ornate, and often grotesque. He produced illustrations for his own books as well as works by Honoré de Balzac, Colette, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Ronald Firbank, Marcel Proust, and Oscar Wilde, among others. His books and articles on Art Nouveau, Symbolism, and other art movements of the fin-de-siècle helped bring about a revival of interest in the period. These include the biography Robert de Montesquiou (1965), Prince of Aesthetes (1967), Esthétes et Magiciens (1969) translated as Dreamers of Decadence (1971), Les Symbolistes (1973), and The Triumph of Art Nouveau (1974). Among others, he admired French painter Antonio de La Gandara. A collector, he published his autobiography, La Brocante, which detailed the "love of small objects," in 1975.
Works of fiction by Jullian dealt with the decadent, sensual, and macabre. He explored the themes of homoeroticism, sado-masochism, transvestism and the aesthetic life. His gift for satire is evident both in fiction such as La Fuite en Egypte (1968; published as The Flight into Egypt, 1970) and in his works of social satire, including Dictionnaire du Snobisme ("The Snob-Spotter’s Guide," 1958), Les Collectioneurs ("The Collectors," 1967), and most notably his collaboration with the British novelist Angus Wilson, For Whom the Cloche Tolls: A Scrap-Book of the Twenties (1953), which he also illustrated.
Other books include Montmartre (1977) and Les Orientalistes (1977), works of art history; and biographies of Edward VII (1962), Wilde (1967), Gabriele D’Annunzio (1971), Jean Lorrain (1974), Violet Trefusis (1976), and Sarah Bernhardt.
Jullian's Journal, 1940–1950 (published 2009) documents his experiences and responses to the German occupation of France. On 22 March 1944 he wrote:
The twenty days I spent in the country were quite pleasant, and I take no pleasure in returning to Paris. One is awfully tired of feeling irritated all the time. The atmosphere is tense with raids, the fear of departures to Germany. An uncertain period, cowardly for those who aren't heroes.An article written by Jullian appeared in 1977 in the Architectural Digest about the Shah of Iran's new palace.
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Famous quotes containing the word works:
“All his works might well enough be embraced under the title of one of them, a good specimen brick, “On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History.” Of this department he is the Chief Professor in the World’s University, and even leaves Plutarch behind.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Audible prayer can never do the works of spiritual understanding, which regenerates; but silent prayer, watchfulness, and devout obedience enable us to follow Jesus’ example. Long prayers, superstition, and creeds clip the strong pinions of love, and clothe religion in human forms. Whatever materializes worship hinders man’s spiritual growth and keeps him from demonstrating his power over error.”
—Mary Baker Eddy (1821–1910)
“The ancients of the ideal description, instead of trying to turn their impracticable chimeras, as does the modern dreamer, into social and political prodigies, deposited them in great works of art, which still live while states and constitutions have perished, bequeathing to posterity not shameful defects but triumphant successes.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)