150 years of Alice: a chest full of wonders, part three.

This is the last appointment for the 150 years of Alice. Keep strong because for the last post devoted to the already "unbirthday" I have reserved a surprise. Among the five volumes that I will present there are a couple very precious! One is even the first Italian edition entirely illustrated by an Italian artist. I bet that fans already know what I'm talking about ... Good reading!

Massimiliano Longo. Alice nel Paese delle Meraviglie

Massimiliano Longo draws a more mature Alice, a teenager who lives the adventure in Wonderland with a higher consciousness, without  loosing the freshness of childhood of Lewis Carroll's Alice. The drawings, made by simple pencil lines, represent scenes rich in details which become almost  photographic pictures in the colour plates. The whole characters are very realistic to confirm the idea that at the end of the Rabbit hole begins a Wonderland as real as our land.

Emma Chichester Clark. Alice in Wonderland.

A merry brigade keeps company to Alice in her games and adventures in the backyard. Emma Chichester Clark gives to  younger readers as well as to grown ups, a joyful and amusing story set in a world full of things to discover. The bright colours and the appealing illustrations of the English author transform Lewis Carroll's classic in a contemporary tale in which dreams and reality are the same thing.

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.