REVIEW OF ILLUSTRATIVE SPACE OF A. M. VOLKOV’S FAIRY TALE “WIZARD OF EMERALD CITY” IN THE PUBLICATIONS OF 1939–2021

This article is devoted to the review of the illustrative space of the fairy tale of one of the most popular Russian children’s writers Alexander Melentevich Volkov «The Wizard of the Emerald City» on the basis of the memorial collection of the children’s museum “Magic Country” named after A. M. Volkov of the Tomsk State Pedagogical University, as well as Internet publications for 1939 to 2021. As a result of this study, the names of 80 artists who illustrated the fairy tale for 82 years were revealed. Analysis of the illustrative space of each book showed the crucial importance of the correct choice for illustrations of the basic events of the plot of the fairy tale, the preservation of the logic of the development of the main storyline, the need to use additional illustrations for a detailed study of the climactic scenes, as well as portraits of the characters. The completeness of the saturation of the illustrative space of the tale, measured by the number of illustrations, ranged from zero to illustration on each page. At the same time, the dynamics of visual content developed from one illustration on 4–7 pages of text to an illustration on each spread (2014, 2020). Color preferences have evolved from black and white book graphics to a variety of watercolor technologies in the household, species, landscape, portrait and animalistic genres. The problem of correspondence of the author’s vision and artistic embodiment in the space of a children’s book is one of the most important problems not only of scientific research, but also of figurative and cognitive education of children.

children’s book, A. M. Volkov, “Wizard of Emerald City”, illustrators, illustrative space