The Art of Visual Storytelling: Formal Strategies in Wordless Picturebooks

Abstract

The title of this chapter was taken from the website of the author-illustrator David Wiesner, an acknowledged master of “the art of visual storytelling.”1 At the “Beyond Borders: Art, Narrative and Culture in Picturebooks” Symposium in Glasgow in 2009, I examined a number of multilayered wordless picturebooks which, like Wiesner’s, cross age borders.2 This chapter focuses on the formal strategies used by artists/illustrators to tell visual stories that engage an audience of all ages. The works discussed challenge not only the boundaries between adult books and children’s books, but the boundaries of the book itself. Many of these formal strategies were pioneered by creators of so-called artists’ books. As I note in Crossover Picturebooks: A Genre for All Ages, “Artists’ Books” have had a signifi cant infl uence on the development of the picturebook. Many artists’ books are wordless or almost wordless and many wordless picturebooks fall into the category of artists’ books. It is impossible to draw a boundary between the two genres. The “books without words” conceived by the Italian designer Enzo Mari and his former wife Iela in the 1960s have become picturebook classics, while the picturebooks published by Paul Cox and Milos Cvach in the last decade have been categorized as artists’ books. The “art of visual storytelling” in these innovative works relies heavily, if not solely, on the formal aspects of the book.