Art by Jessie Willcox Smith
I've heard it said there are three kinds of people: visual people (most responsive to sight); auditory people (most responsive to sound), and kinesthetic people (most responsive to touch). Supposedly you can tell if someone is dominantly visual, auditory or kinesthetic by observing where the eyes are directed when that person is in the midst of thinking about what to say, retrieving information from the memory. Visual people will tend to direct their eyes upward at such moments; auditory people will direct their eyes to the side; and kinesthetic people will direct their eyes downward. This dominant sense, they say, can also be applied to how we learn best: by seeing, listening, or doing.
Or so the theory goes! I don't know how true it is, but it can be interesting to observe yourself and others with this in mind. I usually look up when I'm trying to remember something. And when at the the symphony, I must close my eyes, removing all visual input to my brain, if I want to really
hear the music.
Perhaps this super strong response to the visual explains why, when I think back to books I read as a child, what I remember first are the illustrations to the stories and poems. For example, that wonderful multi-volume set of orange-covered books with children's literature and poems, from the 1950's. I remember the bindings but not the name of the series. The spines of the books had, in addition to the orange leather binding, black and blue stripes above and/or below the title or number of the volume. And I can still see the illustrations inside for "
The Cat and the Fiddle," "
The Owl and the Pussycat," as well as a Christmas poem that talked about "sugarplum fairies" which was illustrated with a spreading tree covered with candies and fruits. I was always wished I could taste one of those sugarplums....they sounded so sweet and juicy.
Later, while in Third Grade, I discovered the library at the elementary school; that is when my reading career took off like a rocket, never to return to earth! I recall little volumes of biographies about the early US presidents and their spouses....but what interested me most about those were the wonderful silhouettes used as illustrations, similar to this:
The stark crispness of the black-white contrast fascinated me, the way each blade of grass, leaf, and even eyelashes were clearly defined, and the gracefulness of the ladies' clothing, complete with ruffles and flounces. There was such detail created from such simplicity of color.
Of course, I loved color illustrations too, as long as they were finely drawn and detailed. I never cared for "cartoony" illustrations, even back then. Remember the First Grade "Dick and Jane" reading books? Those simple illustrations presented in such faded colors didn't hold my attention for long. Perhaps this also hindered my reading skills, for I recall that in the Second Grade, my teacher, Mrs. Johnson, kept me after school for a while to give me private reading instructions. Whatever she did (I don't recall any of it) worked....by Third Grade I was reading beyond my grade level and I never looked back.
When I was in Fifth and Sixth Grades we lived in Hanford, a town located in the San Joaquin Valley of California, in a rambling old Victorian house that my parents were renting. The cost of supporting a family of five kids and two adults on my dad's blue collar salary did not allow us to own a television, so books were our main source of entertainment. The public library was a few blocks away and after accompanying my mother there a few times, I started going on my own to check out books. I was looking for books on the grown-up side of the library by this time. My mother would catch me reading in bed late at night and make me turn out the light. But as soon as my parents had gone to bed, I went back to my book, sometimes staying awake till the early hours of the morning to finish it. Ah, to be young again with all that energy! The occasional lack of sleep never seemed to affect my ability to keep up at school. This might also explain why I had to start wearing glasses about this same time....hmmmmm.
This is the same house we lived in when I was given a little book as a gift called
Kirie, Pirie and Kalikoolin's Pipe, by Edward Maze and Percy MacMahon (who was also the illustrator). Somewhere in our subsequent move back to Southern California, I lost the book, but I never forgot about the wonderful, imaginative black-and-white illustrations. (Black and white again, I wonder if this means something?) These were pen and ink drawings rather than silhouettes.
Art by Percy MacMahonAlthough one illustration in particular remained in my memory into adulthood, the title of the book did not. I could remember it involved a pipe, and two rhyming names something like "perry" and, luckily, with this information and the ingenious Internet search engines, in 2001 I was able to track it down....and bought myself another copy. The little 135-page story is intended for "young adults" and while an entertaining story, is not something I'd read over and over, but those illustrations....well, I do enjoy looking at them every now and then.
When I received the copy I had ordered, I eagerly flipped through the pages looking at the drawings and realized that I had unconsciously absorbed some of MacMahon's drawing techniques, for I discovered that my method of drawing trees closely resembles his, with the separately drawn leaves arranged in clumps, and the fine lines circling the trunks and branches like tiny parallel stripes. (Out of curiousity, I just now Googled the two authors' names and found that a "rare" copy is being offered for $89 on
eBay. Mine did not cost anywhere near that much, nor does it have the illustrated front cover.)
There is one set of illustrations I remembered not for their loveliness but for their darkly sinister and foreboding qualities (or so they appeared to me as a child). These were wood engravings by Fritz Eichenberg found in a two-volume set containing
Wuthering Heights and
Jane Eyre, by Emily and Charlotte Bronte respectively, published in 1943 by Random House.
Art by Fritz EichenbergI discovered these among my mother's little library of books while we were living at that rambling Victorian house I mentioned earlier. Looking at these dark, strange illustrations, I was almost afraid to read the books, but at the same time, I was fascinated by them and had to find out what they were all about. Thus, my introduction to the Bronte sisters, at the tender age of 10 or 11!
Art by Fritz Eichenberg
That was the first and last time I read the Brontes. I did not give the novels much thought in the intervening four decades, though I certainly enjoyed the old black & white movie of
Wuthering Heights, and the more recent
Jane Eyre production on PBS. It wasn't until I got to thinking about this whole topic of storybook illustrations recently that I recalled those dour, scary illustrations in my mother's Bronte volumes from so long ago.
Well, a couple of weeks ago, on my last visit to the One Dollar Bookstore, what do you suppose I found? Yes! Both volumes from the same era, with the identical illustrations. And for one dollar each, I had to buy them. Perhaps I might even read them again. I'm sure my appreciation for the stories will be greatly increased by over 40 years of living since my last reading!
I wonder about this black-and-white theme I've got going here....while I am unquestionably madly in love with all color, it was the black-and-white illustrations that I carried within my memory all those years. Perhaps it has something to do with the child's brain and how it remembers things....or perhaps because I do tend to see outlines and shapes (which black and white emphasizes) before I see color. It's a mystery to me.
Art by Jessie Willcox Smith
Art by Jessie Willcox Smith
