Conventions and Style - Part I
Style is a composite of artistic elements such as line, shape, and color. When these elements repeat, we can call a certain look a style. Style can refer to a particular artist's look; for example an Eric Carle (author of 1,2, 3 to the Zoo) illustration is immediately recognizable as an Eric Carle-created picture because of the shape of the object, the quality of color, the use of line and many, many more elements that are typical of Eric Carle.
Style can also refer to an era or culture where artists used pictorial elements in similar fashions. For example, the style of art in a picturebook may remind us of the way a particular culture makes pictures, say Australian Aborigine art or Japanese Origami. Other pictures may remind us of certain historical movements. For example, Paul Zelinsky's oil paintings in Rapunzel and Hansel and Gretel suggest that he's borrowed from the conventions of 17th Century European painting. What follows is not an exhaustive list of artistic styles, but a few of the more common styles found in picture books.
A. Realism
In what is called representational art, the artist is attempting to represent the world as we see it. No picture, not even a photograph is considered an exact copy of reality, but the intent of the artist in making representational art is show something of the wonder of everyday things. Barry Moser's illustrations for Cynthia Rylant's book Appalachia, as well as Kam Mak's paintings in My Chinatown, are examples of realism.
Go to the Web Resources link for Appalachia to see images and get more
information.
Go to the Web Resources link for My Chinatown to see images and get more
information.
B. Impressionism
Impressionism is associated most closely with a group of French painters who worked in the latter part of the 19th Century. The idea of impressionism was for artists to capture their first visual impressions of nature. Maurice Sendak' s illustrations for Mr. Rabbit and the Lovely Present are highly evocative of Monet' s work. Below is an example from Mr. Rabbit and the Lovely Present.
Go to the Web Resources link for Mr. Rabbit and the Lovely Present to
see images and get more information.
C. Expressionism
The object of expressionistic art is to express the artist' s inner emotions. Expressionistic art is marked by bold brushstrokes, highly saturated colors, and figures slightly out of proportion. Eric Carle's work in 1, 2, 3 to the Zoo could be called expressionistic, as could Susan Guevara's painting for Chato and the Party Animals. John Burningham's Come Away from the Water, Shirley also shows some expressionistic tendencies.
Be sure to look
at your copies of 1, 2, 3 to the Zoo, Chato and the Party Animals,
and Come Away from the Water, Shirley to see this demonstrated.
Chris Raschka attempts to express music in his art. Mysterious Theolonius is an ambitious book, where Raschka matches the colorwheel to the twelve-tone chromatic scale to produce a visual representation of Monk' s jazz classic, "Mysterioso."
Raschka has also made picturebook homages to the music of Charlie Parker, John Coltrane, as well as the Shaker hymn, "Simple Gifts," a tribute done in a style reminiscent of Paul Klee.