Transcript
NARRATOR
The Victorian illustrators were perhaps the key illustrators when we start looking at books specifically for children. Kate Greenaway’s world is one of fragrance and perfect children, rose-filled gardens and cottages, the idyllic childhood. And of course, she appealed enormously to children and, perhaps more importantly, parents with this perfect world.
Water Crane’s illustration work is very much of the arts and crafts period -- extremely decorative, flat colour and shapes, quite formal drawings essentially. Randolph Caldecott’s illustrations I would say are much more earthy than people like Greenaway or Walter Crane. They somehow have that element of naughtiness and stuff going on -- much more a sense of everyday life.
Arthur Rackham is perhaps one of the most influential artists, still very much in print today, just a brilliant technician in terms of his use of watercolour combined with an extraordinary imagination. So his illustration work has great richness.
Perhaps one of the greatest illustrators, or British illustrators, certainly of the 20th century would be Edward Ardizzone. In terms of children’s books, I suppose Edward Ardizzone is best known for the Tim books. He’s often described as the quintessentially English Illustrator. His books are always full of local detail. He lived in Suffolk for a long time, and also in Kent.
Ardizzone wasn’t formally trained as an artist. He began his working life working as a clerk in an office, taking evening classes in life drawing, but was a compulsive doodler. Some people describe his work as occasionally sentimental. I don’t think it’s ever sentimental. I think it’s always affectionate and done with enormous charm.
Quentin Blake -- although his work is instantly recognisable, a very distinctive, stylistic approach -- he actually has enormous range. His work covers humour, obviously. An enormous amount of the work is humorous. But he also deals with more sad stories, famously the Sad Book with Michael Rosen.
Without consciously, stylistically changing, he seems to be able to express these very different moods and emotions through his drawing. He’s also very interested in the relationship between words and pictures. I think one of the best examples is a book he did called Cockatoos, where he’s incredibly inventive in the way he uses the viewpoint of the reader to show that we can see what’s going on, but the hapless Professor DuPont can’t see what’s going on. It’s a brilliant piece of work.
John Burningham, I think, is one of our most original artists and authors working in picture books today. He’s another artist who never talks down to the reader. His books are, at the same time, sophisticated but accessible.
There’s a crudeness to the drawing. He uses materials that you would never normally think of putting together. There’s Biro, and wax crayon, and very sensitive media alongside very crude media. And yet there is such an artistic vision that holds it all together. There’s an indefinable magic in his drawings and an incredible sense of atmosphere. A river bank scene, which is drawn entirely with green Biro, seems to somehow smell of the watery summer day.
One of the most influential picture book artists of recent is the American, Lane Smith, best known for his collaborations with the writer, Jon Scieszka. Smith and Scieszka -- and, importantly, their designer Molly Leach -- are very much a team who come together to create a picture book, and who, between the three of them, really understand the picture book as a medium, and play with it, subvert it. The designer plays a key role because very often the typography in Smith and Scieszka’s books is imagery. We find that characters are speaking about the words, and the layout, the size of the words, the often upside downness of the words, become part of the overall meaning.
Sara Fanelli is a particularly interesting artist working in picture books today. Her work is hugely admired, particularly by art students and artists generally. She’s very much the illustrators’ illustrator, I think. She’s seen as working on the edge, if you like, of contemporary illustration, always pushing the boundaries. She’s also rather batted about as an example of, in some people’s view, certain artists being too indulgent or too sophisticated for children.
It’s always difficult to know what is appropriate for children and what isn’t. I don’t think there are any rules about this. I think often artwork that is described as too sophisticated is not regarded as remotely over-sophisticated in other cultures. Children are incredibly flexible and receptive in terms of how they receive imagery.