The Russian illustrators of the Père Castor : Russian mediators in France of the concept of construction in art and pedagogy in the 1930s

Russian illustrators working in Paris from the 1910s through the '20s contributed importantly to two major developments. First, a huge paradigm shift took place in the '20s and '30s about the definition of reality, whether constructed or perceived by reason and the senses. Second, there was a dual function of education in allowing children to build and grow according to their innate predispositions while also helping them adapt to the world in which they lived. This article examines how the Père Castor publisher's Russian illustrators served as mediators of Soviet visual culture in France and focuses on the concept of the construction of image. The article recapitulates the concept of construction in the Russian and Soviet artistic milieu and describes the Russian illustrators' visual experiments with the construction of image. It demonstrates that the search for the child's active participation in reading gave rise to the goal of creating dynamic artwork. Finally, it places the Russian illustrators' works in the double context of French and Russian educational thought, exploring convergences between the New Education promoted by Paul Faucher, his adaptation of its concepts in illustrations for children and Soviet works on the child's perception, exploring the relationship between the construction of image and the construction of the child.