The Temptations of Attractiveness

Abstract

The Temptations of Attractiveness Hamida Bosmajian (bio) Harold Darling and Peter Neumeyer , eds. Image & Maker. An Annual Dedicated to the Consideration of Book Illustration. 1. La Jolla, California: Green Tiger Press, 1984. The first annual edition of Image & Maker leaves the viewer and reader with one crucial question: will future annuals present significant and discussion-generating analyses of book illustrations, of the kind offered by Perry Nodelman and Stephen Canham in this first issue, or will the editors succumb to the temptations of nostalgia, attractiveness and quaintness that seem to be implied by the other articles? I hope the annual will take the former path. The first issue, with its handtipped color illustrations, is obviously a labor of love. The editors should, however, have given equal care to the text, which surprises the reader with more grammar, punctuation and spelling errors than might be expected in such a seemingly elegant volume. The subtitle of the annual suggests that future issues may not be limited to the discussion of illustrations in children's books. I also hope that the editors will not shy away from including discussions of illustrations that are problematical, for example those found in popular re-tellings of classics such as Peter Rabbit or the stereotypical illustrations in editions of Little Black Sambo. Neither artistic excellence nor attractiveness should be the exclusive criterion for including discussions of illustrations, unless such a criterion is to be the expressed editorial policy. The later essays in the volume are the least stimulating. For instance, the argument of Kenneth Luther's essay on the Great Catalogues is that, given the rarity of U.S. collections of early juvenile books, "the most viable alternative for surveying children's book art can be through the medium of the 'Great Catalogues.'" In emphasizing our pleasure in these pictures as works of art, he forgets that these catalogues take illustrations out of context. And while Carolyn Haywood's personal recollection of Jessie Wilcox Smith offers some not readily available biographical data about the artist, Haywood's idyllic imagery and repeated use of words like "lovely" and "charming" tend to become cloying. It would be fascinating to find in a future issue a rigorous analysis of Wilcox Smith's attractive illustrations and their contribution to myths about childhood and motherhood. Earlier in the volume, Helen Borgens brings to our attention Luther Daniel Bradley's use of his relatives in his dream visions Wonderful Willie and Our Indians in a competent and purposeful discussion of Bradley's values as he transferred them from his political cartoons to his dream visions for children. Throughout her discussion she shows the kinship between the cartoons and the dream visions, for both express his search for order in a disorderly world, real or fantastic. Since Borgens intended to renew our acquaintance with Bradley's work, she might also have considered possible value conflicts between our perception of native Americans and Bradley's. Still earlier, Stephen Canham's "What Manner of Beast? Illustrations of 'Beauty and the Beast'" is a significant analysis of how illustrators have depicted Beast as the human "other" and of the tensions between sympathy and repugnance caused in the perceivers of Beast: "The most successful Beasts, then, represent both the horrible and the attractive, the grotesque and the appealing." Canham sees credibility as crucial to our perception of Beast. The reader-perceiver becomes actively engaged in this essay by seeing and "reading" the illustrations, by agreeing with or contesting Canham's interpretations. When we have read a tale and only later come upon illustrations for it, we often say "this is not at all how I imagined it," leaving aside the question of whether our imagination was richer or much poorer than the illustrator's. Strong illustrations can secretly disappoint us because they make us feel dominated and excluded, but our perceptions of a variety of illustations of the same tale encourage us to realize that illustrations are interpretations. Therefore, a single perception of Eleanor Boyle's medieval Beauty at table with a walrus-like Beast may be intimidating through its artistry, but it comes to seem psychologically invalid when we compare it with Erica Duconet's human-werewolf...