For the third installment of ‘Eye on Alice,’ we continue our look at the covers for the book. These are modern versions, and as you will see, they cut across the whole spectrum of artistic styles, from more traditional illustration to surrealism to modernism.
Helen Oxenbury – The Complete Alice (cover)
Jill Patterson – Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (cover)
Mario Jodra – Alicia en el pais de las maravillas (cover)
Nancy Wiley – Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (cover)
Alain Gauthier – Alice au pays des merveilles (cover)
Cinzia Ratto – Alice in Wonderland (cover)
Emanuele Luzzati – Alice nel paese delle meraviglie (cover)
Gennadi Kalinovski – Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (cover)
This looks more like bookmark than a cover:
Giovanni Robustelli – Alice in Wonderland
Two different versions of the cover by Julia Gukova:
Julia Gukova – Alice in Wonderland (cover) (1)
Julia Gukova – Alice im Wunderland (cover) (2)
Rico Lins – Alice au pays des merveilles (cover)
Vladislav Erko – Alice in Wonderland (cover)
Mario Jodra – Portfolio (official)
Nancy Wiley Studio & Gallery (official)
Giovanni Robustelli (official)
Julia Gukova (official)
Rico Lins Studio (official)
The Accidental Russophile: The Art of Vladislav Erko
Trendland: Vladislav Erko’s Playing Cards (Erko is a unique and amazing artist—I love these cards!)
Comments:
From aliceflynn on May 3, 2011
Very interesting post. As an Alice, I’ve always had an interest in these works, and especially as an illustrator, I am happy to see your collection of so many different interpretations. Alice in Wonderland, for me, seemed like a disturbing work of nightmare, of migraine hallucination, not a child’s innocent dream. Some of these illustrations have captured that disturbing edge. Alice Flynn
From pipstarr72 on May 3, 2011
‘Alice’ is a mixed bag and people come away with a lot of different experiences from it. I think what makes it brilliant, aside from the sheer audacity of the imagination that went into it and the fact that it broke new ground for children’s literature by having no moral, is the fact that Carroll really captured the surrealistic, at times overwhelming, quality of being a child in an adult world. From the child’s eyes so many aspects of adult culture are strange, ridiculous, violent. If one never entirely relinquishes that child-like perspective, then it’s easy to see exactly how right children are. Carroll, I think, more than any other children’s author of the time, had that child-like perspective. He was appalled at what he saw around him, at how the culture treated children as little more than nuisances and little bundles of chaos that had to be violently shaped into perfect little Victorian ladies and gentleman. In some ways ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ is the first real indictment of child abuse, and the disturbing qualities it has mirror the abusive Victorian culture Carroll observed around him. I recommend ‘Lewis Carroll: A Biography’ by Morton Cohen; if you ever get the chance it’s well worth a read.