image/text
Chaperoning Words
On 21, Dec 2015 | In Picturebooks | By Chris Vitale
Sanders, Joe Sutliff. “Chaperoning Words: Meaning-Making in Comics and Picture Books.” Children’s Literature: 57-90. Web.
Referrer: Chris Vitale
Categories: picturebooks, comics, visual storytelling, methodology, image/text
Annotation:
Sanders is making the argument that comic book study and picture book study are intertwined. In this lengthy paper, we are introduced to a methodology for determining the difference and meaning between the messages and forms of these two genres. Theory is a difficult thing to apply to comics and picturebooks according to Sanders. Instead he proposes the notation of the obvious differences among the two forms in order find a solution to his defined problem. Sanders states, “if they have even the dimmest awareness of the impact of shape, line, color, and pacing (and I suspect they have quite a cunning awareness of a wide range of aesthetics), they are chaperoning key elements themselves.” Sanders section entitled “Fixing Meaning” is particularly important for it’s treatement of the word and image dynamic in these forms of literature. The two genres combine words in a fundamentally similar way. The major takeaway is as follows: “in general, if the book anticipates a solitary reader who chaperones the words as they go about their work of fixing the meaning of the images, that book is a comic; if the book instead anticipates a reader who chaperones the words as they are communicated to a listening reader, that book is a picture book.”
Visual Narrativity in the Picture Book
On 21, Dec 2015 | In Picturebooks | By Chris Vitale
Wesseling, Elisabeth. “Visual Narrativity in the Picture Book: Heinrich Hoffman’s Der Struwwelpeter.” Children’s Literature in Education 35.4 (Dec. 2004): 319–45.
Referrer: Carrie Hintz
Categories: visual story telling, picturebooks, color theory, image/text, irony, layout
Annotation:
Wesseling immediately argues, “Both words and images make their own relatively autonomous contribution to the overall semantic, aesthetic and emotional effect of the picture book. Therefore, it has often been observed that the picture book is closer to other mixed narrative forms such as drama or film than to verbal fiction.” Channeling Nodelman, Wesseling dives into a reading of Der Struwwelpeter, oder lustige Geschichten und drollige Bilder that is focused on word and image interaction. This close reading of the text and images garners observations regarding the representations, visual storytelling, and textual augmentation of the illustrations. The construction and layout of pages in relation to rhyming is discussed and categorized as Visual Rhymes. This abstract perspective on visual structure is valuable for thinking about the implications of layout in distant reading picturebooks.
Ways of the Illustrator
On 20, Dec 2015 | In Picturebooks | By Chris Vitale
Schwarcz, Joseph. H. Ways of the Illustrator: Visual Communication in Children’s Literature. Chicago: American Library Association, 1982. Print.
Referrer: Chris Vitale
Categories: picture theory, visual language, definitions, image/text, illustrated books, visual storytelling, genre
Annotation:
Schwarcz does a deep dive into the visual language found in picture books and more broadly children’s literature. This early exploration of the relationship between text and illustration takes color, representation, shape, and emotional experience into consideration. Maurice Sendak, Ezra Jack Keats, and Virginia Burton are areas of inquiry for the author as the picture books they created are of particular interest. Each one represents a mastery of interplay between the two commanding elements. Schwarcz looks at the mood and psychological impact of words and pictures as well.
Words About Pictures
On 20, Dec 2015 | In Picturebooks | By Chris Vitale
Nodelman, Perry. Words About Pictures: The Narrative Art of Children’s Picture Books. Athens and London: The University of Georgia Press, 1988. Print.
Referrer: Chris Vitale
Categories: picture theory, visual language, definitions, image/text, illustrated books, visual storytelling, genre
Annotation:
This text is the seminal work regarding the relationship between pictures and text in picture books. The examination that is done by Nodelman stretches in the intricacy and specialty associated with the aesthetic and literary primary source material found in the corpus of children’s picture books. Nodelman explores a range of text that spans well-known story’s like Where the Wild Things Are to more generic alphabet books. The picture book’s use of visual illustration is explored in depth. The significance of the pictorial elements of the text is brought into the limelight for one of the first times in children’s literary study. Of particular interest are the chapters regarding the relationships between multiple visual objects (Chapter 5) as well as visual objects in relation to the text (Chapter 7).
The Dynamics of Picturebook Communication.
On 20, Dec 2015 | In Picturebooks | By Chris Vitale
Nikolajeva, Maria, and Carole Scott. “The Dynamics of Picturebook Communication.” Children’s Literature in Education 31.4. (2000): 225–39.
Referrer: Carrie Hintz
Categories: picture theory, visual language, definitions, image/text, illustrated books, narrative
Annotation:
Nikolajeva and Carole Scott discuss the groundwork for the larger book How Picturebooks Work in this article. The interplay and interaction between text and images is presented and distilled down. For Nikolajeva and Scott, the relationship between words and images is ambiguous and subjective. It is acknowledged that in an effort to categorize these kinds of relationships, some are more easily identifiable than others. The relationship is often complex and reliant on a range of factors that are different for each text. The distinction between illustrated books and picture books is also essential for these researchers. Picture books imply narrative work being accomplished by the illustrated elements of the text. Illustrated books use illustrations as decoration to complement rather than work alongside the text.
A Multimodal Analysis of Image-text Relations in Picture Books.
On 20, Dec 2015 | In Picturebooks | By Chris Vitale
Wu, Shuxuan. “A Multimodal Analysis of Image-text Relations in Picture Books.” Theory and Practice in Language Studies 4.7 (Jul. 2014): 1415-1420
Referrer: Chris Vitale
Categories: Multimodal, picturebook, image/text, computer science, linguistics
Annotation:
Wu is a scholar of Linguistics that implements a Systemic Functional Multimodal Analysis in an effort to illuminate image-text relations. A thorough classification multimodal classifications and their construction of meaning is given. A brief overview of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) is given. Picture books have been chosen because the genre contains a wide array of image-text relation examples. Three categories for image-text relation types are given: Elaboration, Extension, Enhancement and Projection. Wu who breaks it into a multi-level analysis presents a generic framework of picture books. From culture context, context of situation, to the content stratum, down to the display stratum, a new perspective for non-linguistic scholars is provided. Wu concludes that the text and images in picture books contribute autonomously, but that the image-text relationship is complex and not as simple as complementary, extensible, etc.
