Illustrating Alice: Special edition.

Guido Stagnaro. Alice nel paese delle meraviglie.

Alice goes through the screen to come back into a book. At the hand of the director Guido Stagnaro, in fact, in the mid-seventies, Carroll's story ends up on Italian TV. At the same time, from this beautiful drama titled Nel mondo di Alice was taken an illustrated book with photographs from some scenes. These pictures have nothing to envy to the best illustrations. The sets, beautiful costumes, makeup and facial expression of the actors create suggestive pictures which accompany the adventure of our heroine from Oxford.

Illustrating Alice

An international selection of illustrated editions of Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass

Rébecca Dautremer. Alice nel Paese delle Meraviglie.

In the interpretation of the french artist Rébecca Dautremer, Alice experiences an adventure which lasts the time of a dream in a land with a gloomy atmosphere. The calm and the silence reign for the whole narration and the noisy Caucus Race lowers its tone. It seems as if the chatter was absorbed by the surrounding waters. To break this peace, the artist introduces some unexpected events which leave the audience out of breath. The viewer, in fact, without notice, is catapulted into the scene or thrown out of it by a refined and unusual perspective.

Shelagh McNicholas. Alice in Wonderland.

Shelagh McNicholas' illustrations recreate a Wonderland of delicate atmospheres. The colours, soft and bright at the same time, thanks to the watercolour technique, live with a cool pencil drawing which emerges from the painting and often shows the construction marks of figures and scenes. In this way the illustrator obtains pictures with a strong sense of dynamism combined with a light and graceful atmosphere. Even the characters are loving and  happy and it seems that they accompany the reader to a country adventure that takes place near a wood in the English countryside.

Jiří Pavlín Gustav Šeďa. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Pop-out pictures inside.

Jiří Pavlín and Gustav Šeďa's illustrations give us a bright colour Alice depicted with an original and linear style enriched by a light pop-up effect. These pictures, stylistically related to the tradition of Eastern Europe and the aesthetic of the seventies, evoke the atmosphere of the period in which they were created but, on the other hand, they are still very cool thanks to the linearity of the figures and the attractive color palette. The Mock Turtle's interpretation is very peculiar: it is depicted by the illustrators as a little pig in a turtle shell.

Alice on the notes. Minimum discography.

The research for musical works dedicated to Alice is endless. It is a  kind of long journey that involves almost all genres: classical, jazz, pop and rock. Although the works are varied, switching from whole symphonic album, movie soundtracks or individual songs, some are a bit 'out of tune but other are noteworthy as the work of Sergio and Arturo Annechino Rendine.

J. Otto Seibold. Alice in pop-up Wonderland

J. Otto Seibold distorts the image of Alice to which we have been accustomed, even though different in style, by the illustrators' interpretations from the early 20th century to today. In the pop-up book made by only six animated plates, the artist presents a new Alice deprived of romanticism, fairy atmosphere and crinoline which often has accompanied Carroll's tale. The pop-up mechanisms are simple, not spectacular and they do not distract the reader's attention from the super-coloured and graphically very cool and dynamic illustrations. Everything works perfectly in Seibold's story; the text, minimized and composed by extravagant fonts, comes alongside with the illustrations and, in a certain sense, becomes a substantial part of it. Thanks to the balance of all the elements by which it is composed, this book can be considered not just an illustrated book but a perfect graphic artwork.

Emanuele Luzzati. Alice nel Paese delle Meraviglie.

Emanuele Luzzati gives us the happiest, the funniest and the perkiest Alice. Through a series of plates made with mixed media such as collage, etching and painting, Luzzati  creates his own Wonderland. This is a world which joins tradition, popular colture, fairy atmosphere and childhood imaginary. The colours are bright and the joyful atmosphere receives a cheerful Alice, almost naive, who has a big smile printed on a round face coloured by two red cheeks.

Edizioni Anarchismo. Alice nel Paese delle Meraviglie.

In every edition of Wonderland we meet a new Alice, but in the Edizioni Anarchismo's edition there is not a trace of the English little girl. She doesn't appear neither in the text nor in the pictures. Alice and Wonderland, in fact, in this little book, are transformed in a sort of symbol or, to be precise, metaphor of the struggle for national liberation.

Alice in the Bel Paese. The Italian editions.

Here is a list, by illustrators, that enumerates most of the Italian editions of Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass. The editions not illustrated and those in which the name of the illustrator doesn't appear are included apart.

J.T. Holden and Andrew Johnson. Alice in Verse. The lost Rhymes of Wonderland

Thanks to the long research of the young poet J.T. Holden The Lost Rimes of Wonderland came to life and reanimate of new spirit Carroll's characters. Andrew Johnson's illustrations, all in black and white and made just with a pencil on paper, follow carefully the verses describing the salient moments of the story. The brilliant stile, sometimes almost cartoon-like and caricature-like, gives us an Alice with retro features and contemporary temperament. All the other Wonderland's characters are pervaded by this spirit and rhythmically accompany us in the reading of The Lost Rime

Alice in video art.

Hill, Gary. Why do things get in a muddle? (Come on Petunia). 1984. watch the video

Gordon, Douglas. Through a Looking-Glass. 1999.

Murakami, Takashi. Superflat Monogram. 2003. watch the video

Sumo Science. Dot. 2010. watch the video