Chris Van Allsburg
Chris Van Allsburg ( born June 18, 1949 in Grand Rapids, Michigan) is an American illustrator and writer of children's books. He won the Caldecott Medal for his books Jumanji (1982) and The Polar Express ( 1985); next to the text might originate the imagings of him. Both have been successfully implemented in later movies. He received the 1980 Caldecott Medal for the book The Garden of Abdul Gasazi.
Life
He attended the Art School of the University of Michigan and received his Master of Fine Arts from the Rhode Island School of Design.
Actually, Van Allsburg was a sculptor and later began to produce drawings which are also about very plastic. He saw her first as a minor matter. For his graphic work, he uses some strong contrasts similar to Ludwig Hohl wine. His wife, who is a teacher, encouraged him to use his drawings and paintings for children's books as they appeared very suitable for this. A friend, the author and illustrator David Macaulay, agreed with her match it. Macaulay encouraged Van Allsburg's wife to present the images to a publisher. The publisher replied positively, but seemed to accept Van Allsburg should take pictures for stories by other authors, however, encouraged Van Allsburg's wife her husband to think up their own stories.
For his extremely detailed and meticulously drawn Chris Van Allsburg books takes several months each time. Despite the finely drawn details all live images Van Allsburg's uniform and very haunting moods. His books are sorted according to the character of the story in black and white (for example, Jumanji ) or colored (for example, The Polar Express. )
Chris Van Allsburg lives with his family in Providence, Rhode Iceland.
Works
His books describe fantastic and uncontrollable events and sometimes use a fierce irony. Van Allsburg breaks out of the comfortable world of children's literature to explore the darker side of man. For example, the book The Sweetest Fig is about a selfish man to whom it is possible to suddenly live out his wildest dreams. His greed is ultimately his downfall. Now this is not unusual for the moral content of a children's book, but Van Allsburg's cool drawing of man brings a frightening undercurrent in the narrative. The story of The pathetic stone, wherein a ship's crew is mesmerized and corrupted by the stone, is an allegorical tale about the bad influence of television.
Other literary themes include dreams, the environment and objects with life of its own (like the board in Jumanji and Zathura. )
In each book the dog Fritz occurs, a bull terrier, which is modeled after a real dog that belonged to Chris Van Allsburg's brother in law. He comes in every book before and on its website, sometimes as a real dog sometimes as a toy or other object as a reminder of the real Fritz.
In an interview Van Allsburg mentioned to his choice of subject his interest in "own thoughts " of fictional characters, for example, how a flashy colorful painted by his daughter coloring book character feels. His favorite book ( Harold and the Purple Crayon ) in childhood had a similar theme: A little boy painting with a purple pen a world to paint at the end of a room and a bed to lie down and sleep. Likewise, he chooses as subjects unexpected relationships and ambiguous outputs of situations (eg, The Garden of Abdul Gasazi ).
Awards
- Ben 's Dream
- The Garden of Abdul Gasazi
- Jumanji
- Just a Dream
- The Mysteries of Harris Burdick
- The Polar Express ( The Polar Express in German Carlsen Verlag)
- Probuditi!
- The Stranger
- Swan Lake ( artist)
- The Sweetest Fig
- Two Bad Ants
- The Wreck of the Zephyr
- The Wretched Stone
- The Widow's Broom
- The Z What Zapped ( German: The Z burst, carlsen )
- Zathura ( German, carlsen )
The Secrets of Harry Burdick, a collection of images on one side and text on the other (make " rediscovered pages " of longer books represent ), the subjects with darker undertones continued and gave up the idea from a short story by writer Stephen King in the collection nightmares and dreamscapes.
Van Allsburg's art can also be found in one of the many editions of CS Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia series on the various titles of the books and he illustrated a number of children's books by Mark Helprin.