Lică Sainciuc: As Happy as a Lark, across the Years

Abstract

Lică Sainciuc:As Happy as a Lark, across the Years Vladimir Kravchenko (bio) The aesthetic aspects featuring images of innocence are scarcely evaluated in the Republic of Moldova, a small sovereign country situated in the extreme east of Europe. That is why the publication of a hardcover album on children's book art by Lică Sainciuc, a renowned Moldavian children's book illustrator, designer, and researcher soon became an important literary event. It is Sainciuc who has been promoting the images of national childhood for the last four decades, both until and after the establishing of the IBBY Moldavian national section in 1997. The brightly colored album, published by the Lumina Publishing House in Chisinau, is titled Grafică de carte pentru copii and contains more than two hundred illustrations by Lică Sainciuc for books authored by the most famous children's writers of the country. Among them is Spiridon Vangheli, the only Moldavian nominee for the Hans Christian Andersen Award and the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award. Illustrations carefully examined and reproduced in the present album were carried out from 1963 until 2018, and were published mainly in Moldova and Romania. In 2019, the album was recommended by the Selection Committee of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Research to be published with an introductory text by Vladimir Kravchenko, researcher of the Institute of Cultural Heritage, Department of Visual Arts. Click for larger view View full resolution As a culminating point of his brilliant activity, Sainciuc was endowed a National Prize 2019 for his children's book illustrations. It is the first time in the Republic of Moldova that this distinction of great national value was awarded for this kind of contribution. The Romanian Cultural Institute had previously awarded Sainciuc the Vieru Prize, while the Union of Artists had awarded him another special prize. The award ceremonies for the National Prize 2019 took place at the International Book Fair for Children and Youth in Chisinau, the only fair event at the international level dedicated to children's books in the country, organized with the support of the Moldavian IBBY since 1997. Sainciuc was laureate of the Igor Vieru prize in 2010 at the fourteenth edition of the fair. Also, he authored the graphic layout of Cartier Codobelc, a highly ranked, prize-winning collection of children's books. For the twenty-two-year history of the fair, the artist has illustrated Book-surprise [Cartea-surpriză], a picturebook distributed free of charge to all young visitors to the fair, as well as two Books of the Year. One of these, both authored and illustrated by Sainciuc, was translated into English. [End Page 93] Lică Sainciuc has proven to be an expert in the psychology of the youngest children. All along his artistic career, he has targeted comic vision, introducing eloquent details to approach authenticity, emphasizing on characteristic gestures without overloading composition with trivial expressions, and combining the grotesque with romantic intonations and documentary replicas. Although highly inspired by the art of world-famous cartoons and comic strips, Sainciuc provided an original graphic style of the character of jolly games. This is brought out by masterful use of traditional techniques (pen-and-ink drawing, ecoline, airbrush, felt-tip pen, gouache, appliqué) and also of digital ones (mix of contours, hues and color gradations, other elements of professional designer apps) during the last twenty years. In the album, illustrations representative of the evolution of Moldavian children's literature and art are described and analyzed. The refined illustrations by Sainciuc are commented on in Romanian and English, attracting national and international interest in the album, which is addressed to children and adults of all nations. Vladimir Kravchenko Vladimir Kravchenko is a scientific researcher at the Institute of Cultural Heritage in the Academy of Science of Moldova. Works Cited Kravcenko, V. Lică Sainciuc: Grafică de carte pentru copii. Lumina, 2019. Google Scholar Copyright © 2020 Bookbird, Inc.