Tenth International Conference on The Image

Abstract

This paper posits the discussion of image from a translational perspective, by examining book illustration as translation. Albeit static and building their narrative capability on the simulation of action and the passing of time (as a result of the tensions created by the relationships of sizes, shapes, location, colours, textures, levels of saturation, etc. of the objects in a picture, together with typifications and distortions of movements, gestures, symbols and other conventions — as suggested by Perry Nodelman in Words about Pictures, 1988) images imply a sequence of events in time and are able to tell a story as much as the verbal text. Particularly in illustrated books, however, the story told visually is never coincident with that narrated by words, as (being the product of an interpretation of the text by an illustrator) the pictures function in a dynamic way with the text itself, in associations which can reinforce, expand or even contradict its values. The images in an illustrated book should, thus, be seen as translations of the verbal text, in which the values of the text are rewritten according to the views of the illustrator and which (for this reason, and because the illustrator is also influenced by constraints of various types) insert the text in a certain literary or cultural trend, depending on the factors involved in their production. The illustrations in Alice in Wonderland, Robinson Crusoe, Treasure Island, amongst others, will be used in association with their respective texts to exemplify these points.