Gregory Hildebrandt

I've already read a few of Greg Hildebrandt's fairytales this month, so I figured why not read his magical storybook treasury and stack his shelf completely?! Since I covered his Alice in Wonderland already I'll keep my review focused on the other two sotires in this collection: the Wonderful Wizard of Oz and Pinocchio. Neither of these stories are particular favourites of mine (the Wizard of Oz being far too harsh in its judgement of witches and Pinocchio being centred around an essentially stupid and selfish little boy), but I really like Hildebrandt's illustrations none the less. Both stories are obviously very shortened to fit into the confines of this book, so we suffer slightly with the illustrations and text occasionally mismatching, but we still get the gist of the stories and most of the best illustrations.

The paintings for the Wizard of Ox were particularly well done, I thought, since Hildebrant's bright palette captures the vibrancy of the colour inspired cities. And yet, what makes this story even more of a triumph (remember, I'm not a fan of Ox) are Hildebrant's shifts to other styles of illustration. Before Dorothy is taken to Oz the illustrations are black and white, and retain a sketchlife quality, mirroring the description of her dull and grey existence. Colours pop off the page once she reaches Oz, but when she journies to the western regions to face the witch Hildebrandt switches styles again to flect the danger that Dorothy is in and the negative influence of the Witch of the West. The Witch herself is quite a scary character (even though her demise by dishwater is poor storytelling) and the dramatic pose she strikes when conjuring the winged monkies sets a distinct tone for a powerful (if evil) ruler.

The Pinoccho illustrations didn't strike me as all that exciting in comparison, largely because the settings were far more domestic. The only standouts for me were when Pinocchio visits the puppet theatre and encounters the Blue Fairy, but that's about all I cared for. The story just doesn't have the same intrinsic magical qualities as the others Hildebrandt has illustrated, so his artwork doesn't have nearly as much magical inspiration to work with.… (mer)

In comparison to more recent artists who have taken on the helm of Tolkien illustrators (I'm thinking mostly of Alan Lee's exceptional sketches and concept artwork for Peter Jackson's film version of the trilogy) the Hildebrandts may seem to be very much in the realm of stereotypical fantasy art. Mostly male-focused, slightly caricatured creatures, and not exactly realistic or innovative when it comes to landscape or architecture are the general defining terms of this art style, but in the context of when this work was created (the 1970s) the mastery of medium should still be considered a triumph that fed into the longer tradition of Tolkien-inspired artwork. As discussed in the accompanying text of this book, the brothers relied heavily on the exacting descriptions provided by Tolkien of Middle Earth and its populace of characters, so even while some of their pieces seem a bit juvenile to the modern eye the artwork is still highly evocative of the text. Particularly with this book, I was impressed with the amount of discussion around the research and background of the paintings - the photoshoots peopled by the artists' friends, young Greg Jr.'s rememberances of the world outside their studio, and the techniques that the brothers used to go from sketches to photo references to large scale sketch to finished painting.… (mer)