Antoine Bourdelle and Aristide Maillol - antiquity in the works
Antoine Bourdelle andAristide Mayol. What binds them? That they were born in the same year - 1861st? That both are French? Or that they are outstanding sculptors and are at…

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Landscape poetry
My lessons in art history are different. I give lectures to adults, and I try to talk more with the children, to play, to bring about “co-creation” in them. Especially…

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Barbizon School of Painting
Away from the noise of the capital, French painters of the last century chose the area around the royal residence of Fontainebleau, which since the times of Francis I has…

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Artists miracles

Despite the fact that we are all so different, we live in different places, and speak different languages, and play different games, all over the world, at all times children equally love picture books, and the more interesting pictures they have , the brighter their fantasies become, the better they understand the meaning of still incomprehensible things, “absorbing” everything new with the incredible speed that the eyes see and hear the ears.

In the world of childhood, a special role is assigned to an artist who creates illustrations for books, because he bears a huge responsibility not only for the images he created to correspond to the content, but also for the young readers to like and like the pictures, since they are the real ones here. critics, even the smallest among them, still cannot read.

Already in the 15th century, adults knew that children liked to look at pictures, so they began to publish Bibles and primers with illustrations, because in order to understand what was depicted in the picture, the child was ready to read any, even if the most boring, text. And by the beginning of the 20th century, in almost all countries, an illustrated book for children was becoming an object for artistic quest for great masters of graphics and painting. The works of Russian artists of the 20s of V. Lebedev, El Lissitzky, V. Favorsky, P. Miturich and many others are very interesting. Their experience became the basis for the special science – the art of the book, the purpose of which was the artistic unity of the design of the children’s book, and the illustrations are still considered bright finds in this area.

Later, the artists rethought the structure of books for children, and decided to do everything to penetrate deeper into the world of childhood, and create completely different books that would not only ideally enter this world, but also become part of it. During this period, famous painters and graphic artists (Maurice Sendak and Leo Lyonni in the USA, Emanuel Ludzati in Italy, Caledonio Perelon in Spain, Andre Francois and Patrick Kuraten in France, Ib Spang Olsen in Denmark, Binet Schroeder in Germany, Irie and Tosi Maruki in Japan) became the authors, and they themselves wrote texts for their pictures, and then they released bright books, each of which was a sample of the unity of text and image.

Many great Russian artists realized their talent in creating illustrations for children’s books. Such pictures, thoughtful by creative people, made by the hands of real masters, were not just decorations of publications, supplementing the main text, but also introducing young readers to high art. This and engravings A.I. Ivanov to “Ruslan and Lyudmila” A.S. Pushkin, and the work of I.Ya. Bilibin, who created the ABC in Pictures, the artists of the Abramtsevo Circle, V.M. Vasnetsov, M.A. Vrubel, V.A. Serov, artists who belonged to the World of Art group, whose illustrations for fairy tales remain excellent examples of the design of children’s books.
An illustrator is a co-author of a book, especially a child’s book, because drawings in it often have more significance than text. For such a book to be poorly illustrated means to be uninteresting and unreadable, so any illustration is determined by the quality of its execution. Modern printing bases meet the highest quality requirements for books published for children – store shelves are filled with the most up-to-date publications, but it is worth making a lot of effort and time to find at least a few books that meet the most important requirement in the illustrative design of the publication – the presence of artistry, not to mention about good taste and individuality of artistic style. The child, of course, is prone to take from the shelf the book that catches his eye, on the cover of which he sees familiar Disney characters, rather than going through books in search of highly artistic illustrations. However, the books illustrated in such a way that they can be called a work of art are still published today, even though they are much smaller than they were before.

The most vivid example of a special attitude to a children’s book, in my opinion, is shown by the Kiev artist Vladislav Yerko, who designs amazing book illustrations for both children and adults: “Tales of Foggy Albion”, “The Snow Queen”, “A Hundred Tales”, “ Alice in Wonderland ”, illustrations for the books of Paulo Coelho and the works of Carlos Castaneda, Richard Bach.

Fritz Kremer: “I had the good fortune to create many monuments that stand on the street”
The essence of Kremer’s creative tasks is to appeal to the masses. “I feel it my duty,” says the artist, “to speak about the events that I experienced as a…

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Barbizon School of Painting
Away from the noise of the capital, French painters of the last century chose the area around the royal residence of Fontainebleau, which since the times of Francis I has…

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