Book Illustration (Russia)
If there had not been humorous artists, book, magazine, and newspaper illustrations would have been much duller. Sometimes a popular artist was asked to illustrate a book by his/her favourite satirist, or a caricaturist illustrated books when he/she had no job in the newspapers or magazines. There were some periods in history (1830-1840s and 1930s) when many humorous and satiric magazines were banned by censors, and caricaturists had to earn their living illustrating books. Caricaturists are artists with specific graphic style and incredible views, so their illustrations usually produce unexpected effect.(Remember the illustrations by J.-I. Granville and G. Dore).

In 1910 in a newspaper "Book Review" published in St. Petersburg by M.O. Volf an article "Korney Chukovsky as a critic and caricaturist" was published, it was illustrated with the humorous portraits of Chukovsky. The writer had a specific appearance, so it was quite easy to draw caricatures of him, so a lot of caricaturists like Lyubimov, Re-Mi, V. Mayakovsky, Y. Annenkov, and Chekhonin drew his humorous portraits. Mayakovsky satiric poems were illustrated in "New Satiricon" by N. Radakov, Re-Mi illustrated humorous stories by Teffi (1910), by the way, Teffi was the most popular and widely read humorous writer until October, 1917. The "World of Art" group of artists was like a nursery garden of caricaturists, these artists began to draw caricatures in 1905-1906, and in the early 1920 G. Narbut, one of the members of the above mentioned group, revealed his humorous talent quite unexpectedly. ("Ukrainian ABC", "Fables").

In 1950s the authorities made caricaturists illustrate anti-religious books (A. Loginov "Merry Stories from Holy History", L. Taksil " Funny Gospel", P. Golbach "Pocket Theological Dictionary", D. Bedny "How the 14th Division was going to Paradise"). Many artists were successful illustrating humorous books . K. Rotov illustrated novels by I. Ilf and E. Petrov, later the same books were illustrated by Kukriniksi; in 1939 N. Radlov drew fantastic and humorous pictures for "Wizard of Oz", N. Muratov and B. Efimov turned to the works by M. Saltikov-Tshedrin. In 1941 N. Altman wonderfully illustrated I. Krilov's fables.

1960-1970s gave the chance to the artists of "new wave" to illustrate books and magazines. V. Bakhchanyan illustrated a science-popular magazine "Znanie-Sila" ("Knowledge is Power"), M. Zlatkovsky and G. Basirov - "Khimia i Zhizn" ("Chemistry and Life"). In 1980-1990 a series of books illustrated by caricaturists was published : Gogol's "Dead Souls", Chekhov's stories, a book by Kozma Prutkov were illustrated by S. Tunin; "Alice in Wonderland" - by L. Tishkov; Saltikov-Tshedrin's "Story of One City" - by V. Dmitryuk; Petersburg artists V. Bogorad and A. Sergeev illustrated a book by Sasha Tchyorny.


8. L. Nasirov. Illustration to Gogol's "Nose".


2. K. Rotov. Raven. (M. Saltikov-Tshedrin) 1922.

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9. S. Tunin. Illustration to Chekhov's story.


4. Y. Annenkov. Caricature of K. Chukovsky and self-caricature. 1923.


5. B. Efimov. Wise Gudgeon. (M. Saltikov-Tshedrin). 1939.


1. K. Rabus. Black Shawl.


7. I. Offengenden.


6. V. Rozantsev. Illustration of the book by S. Smirnov. 1979.


3. G. Narbut. Ukrainian ABC


By Dmitry Moskin
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