Power to the Image. Historical Paths through the Mechanisms of the Illustrated Book

Abstract

During a long evolutionary journey, the book, as an artistic form, has used three-dimensional techniques to create devices capable of transforming the reading experience into an “elsewhere” journey. It’s gone from the illustrated book to the interactive one, able to make a virtual reality ante litteram through particular constructions of paper, pop-up books, where the scenes cut out rise vertically and, again, tunnel book (also called paper peepshows or peepshow book) in which a set of sheets, held by an accordion cover, opens successively revealing, through a circular hole present on the first page, a three-dimensional background. These picture books – with specific aesthetic and structural peculiarities – have sometimes been used for different purposes, not without shadows and criticalities, especially in children’s literature, linked to the possibility of “making the circle of narration square” in the difficult balance of images, words and paper games. This proposal intends to pose as a necessary historical reconstruction of the relationship between lógos and eikón, with particular attention to the correct positioning of the two forms of composition described above in the literary panorama for children.