Wordless Book Provokes Readers Imagination
By Chung Ah-young
Staff Reporter
Picture books have long been regarded as books for children, however, recently, illustrated books with high quality content are becoming a universal medium for all generations transcending languages and cultures.
David Wiesner, one of the most original and imaginative children's book illustrators, has created books appealing to a wide range of people of all ages with his fanciful and humorous images without words.
``It was fascinating to see that the wordless books are a kind of nothing other than a book with texts, which have different kinds of storytelling and it allows readers to use their own voices to tell the stories so that they can tell however they want. It seems to inspire kids, after they read it, to turn around and tell themselves,'' Wiesner said in an interview with The Korea Times.
The 53-year-old American author visited Korea as an honored guest artist to the inaugural ceremony of the first CJ Picture Book Festival at Sungkok Museum taking place in Seoul. The visit is his second after he first came here 20 years ago when his first book was published.
Fifty pieces of his original artworks from seven books are exhibited at the museum through March 1, along with other finalists among 1,426 entries from 46 countries submitted between Aug. 18 and Nov. 30 last year in an international competition hosted by the CJ Culture Foundation.
Renowned for his signature wordless book, he has won two Caldecott Medals for ``The Three Pigs'' and ``Tuesday'' and two Caldecott Honor Books designations ``Sector 7'' and ``Free Fall,'' among other awards.
The textless book has a long history but among others, the most well-known ``author'' is Raymond Briggs of ``The Snowman'' in 1978, while Wiesner might be the top in the genre in recent years.
He said that he finds it easy when he makes a picture book. ``I found it very easy. I communicate with pictures and also think it leaves open interpretations _ characters' gestures, facial expressions _ can be read by different people and I like that there can be more than one meaning. But I also find it easier to draw character situation expressively than to find the perfect words to write it,'' he said.
His works don't have text but they have a solid storyline mixed with dreamlike imagination.
``Free Fall'' (1988) is a tale of a boy's dreamy adventure in pursuit of a map that flew away. All the illustrations in this book are fused together to form one long spread. Unbroken like a folding screen, and textless, the images form a fantasy world rich in ancient and modern motifs and their transformations.
Another masterpiece, ``Tuesday'' (1991) portrays a Tuesday evening, around eight o'clock, a posse of frogs embark on an audacious night flight perched on lily pads. During their flight, the world is as quiet as the sea at night. When day breaks, the lily pads fall away from their feet and the sailing frogs return to their everyday existence. The midnight romp brings about another strange incident the following Tuesday. A cathartic fantasy, this book earned Wiesner his first Caldecoot Medal, showcasing the author's wonderful imagination.
``The Three Pigs'' (2001) was a masterful retelling of the fairy tale. The pigs snort and grunt their way through other tales, meeting up with new storybook friends. The author's previous works are hidden here and there among the route that the pigs take, allowing for some fun puzzling along the way. The story is told inside and out with realistic pictures and fun cartoonish inserts. This work earned Wiesner a Prix Sorcieres in France, as well as his second Caldecott Medal.
Asked about where his creativity stems from, he said that everything around him in everyday life inspires him to create new images and stories.
``It's hard to pinpoint what makes it happen as I am drawing. When I drew the frog on a lily pad (in `Tuesday'), it reminded me of a flying saucer. That's what I saw that flying and that's how the frogs got in the air just because of that association. And I started to draw the flying frogs and then the story develops out of that. It's just suddenly I saw the shape and connected it to something else,'' he said.
Wiesner said that story is the most important element when he works in a picture book. ``The illustration is part of the story telling process. I don't take the story out of the picture making process,'' he said.
He emphasized that different ways to read makes the wordless book special. ``I like picture books in general where the text is minimal. If the character is from its posture and its facial expression is happy or sad, the text doesn't need to tell me that. Pictures can say so much that there is no need to say it again with words. That's why the picture books can be really successful when it's balanced between the two,'' he said.
The exhibition also features interactive media and installation art and orchestra performances based on the motif of his works.