112A: Literature for ChildrenDr. Carolyn Sigler
From Molly Bang's Picture This: How Pictures Work.
New York: SeaStar, 2000.
In his foreword to this book, Rudolf Arnheim writes that Bang's "special talent derives from her natural response to what comes alive when one is open to the elements of vision, the disks and the rectangles, the reds and the blacks. Far from being mere shapes, they transmit joy and fear, awe and gentleness.... These simple shapes, animated by Molly Bang, do more than tell a story: they offer an order, a kind of grammar for the eyes, a recipe for yet further things to say. Therefore they also teach" (x).
Molly Bang's "Visual Principles"
1. Smooth, flat, horizontal shapes give us a sense of stability and calm.
2. Vertical shapes are more exciting and more active. Vertical shapes rebel against the earth's gravity. They imply energy and a reaching toward heights or the heavens.
3. Diagonal shapes are dynamic because they imply motion or tension.
4. (a) The upper half of a picture is a place of freedom, happiness, and triumph; objects placed in the top half often feel more "spiritual."
(b) The bottom half of a picture feels more threatened, heavier, sadder, or more constrained; objects placed in the bottom half also feel more "grounded."
(c) an object placed higher up on the page has "greater pictorial weight."
5. (a) The center of the page is the most effective "center of attention." It is the point of greatest attraction.
(b) The edges and corners of the picture are the edges and corners of the picture-world.
6. White or light backgrounds feel safer to us than dark backgrounds because we can see well during the day and only poorly at night.
7. We feel more scared looking at pointed shapes; we feel more secure or comforted looking at rounded shapes or curves.
8. The larger an object is in a picture, the stronger it feels.
9. We associate the same or similar colors much more strongly than we associate the same or similar shapes.
10. We notice contrasts, or put another way, contrast enables us to see.
ENGL 112A: Literature for Children
Dr. Sigler
PICTURE BOOKS
Questions to consider as you evaluate:
1. Do the illustrations tell the same story as the words? What has been added or changed?
2. Can the words tell the story without the pictures?
3. Can the pictures tell the story without the words?
4. What is the style of the artwork? How is color used? What do style and color contribute to mood, description, or storytelling?
5. What is the physical relationship between the pictures and printed text? Do they overlap or are they separate?
6. What is the tone or mood of the pictures?
7. What is the goal of the illustrations?
Resources About Visual Literacy and Picture Books:
Barbara Bader, American Picturebooks from Noah's Ark to the Beast Within. New York: Macmillan, 1976.
Volume 19, Children's Literature (1991).
Volume 9, Children's Literature Association Quarterly (Spring 1984).
Virginia Haviland, "Illustrators and Illustration," in Children and Literature. Glenview, IL: Scott, Foresman, 1973.
Sonia Landes, "Picture Books as Literature," in ChLAQ 10: 2 (Summer 1985): 51-54.
Volumes 7-8, The Lion and the Unicorn (1983-84).
Donna Rae MacCann and Olga Richard, The Child's First Books: A Critical Study of Pictures and Texts. New York: H.W. Wilson, 1973.
Steve Moline, I See What You Mean: Children at Work with Visual Information. York, Maine: Stenhouse, 1995.
Perry Nodelman, Words About Pictures: The Narrative Art of Children's Picture Books. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1988.
Joseph H. Schwarcz, Ways of the Illustrator: Visual Communication in Children's Literature. Chicago: American Library Association, 1982.