Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass appeared for the first time in Russian with exquisite, refined, incomprehensible — in a word, wonderful drawings by Vladislav Yerko*. We asked a famous artist to talk about the origins that feed his work.
Psychologies: How, according to what canons do you create your illustrations for children’s books?
Vladislav Yerko: I draw for myself, but not today, but for a four-five-seven-year-old. I remember myself, I try to imagine what that boy would like, and I put my feelings on paper. However, this does not mean at all that an adult artist working for children should not bring his own life and cultural experience to work. Quite the opposite: I, for example, in some illustrations use the motifs of European painting. So, in The Snow Queen I have a lot of allusions to Brueghel — his inherent feeling of winter seemed to me so perfect that I simply could not help quoting him.
What exactly can a good illustration add to a literary work?
VE: … It is impossible to create a perfect illustration — each of us already has our own “visual image” of our favorite book, and any deviation from it is annoying. That is why, say, in the West, illustrated books are published only for children under 10 years old, in whom such stereotypes have not yet formed, and illustrations are not made for adults at all. In my opinion, this is wrong: you cannot «get» into the visual expectations of each reader, but you can say something new, expand the understanding of the text, show it from a new angle.
What does working with children’s books give you personally — not only as an artist, but as a person?
VE: Everything is simple here: I return to my childhood and gain the opportunity to draw freshness of perception, images and energy from it again. If there is a better way, I don’t know it yet.