My Favourite Children's Book

Vasilisa the Beautiful with illustrations by Ivan Bilibin.

Ivan Bilibin (1876-1942) was a Russian artist, born in St. Petersburg, somewhat isolated from the associations with traditional Russian art found so strongly among the art community in Moscow. His first inspirations came from Russian folk and fairy tales.

Bilibin illustrated Vasilisa the Beautiful in 1899, at the age of 24. His drawings showed his increasing skills as both an artist and a storyteller.

What I also adore about his illustrations are the pattern frames and ornaments around the illustrations, and at the beginning and the end of each page.
These frames increase the dramatism of the illustrations, as they add some more meanings to the environments, both positive and negative.

The ornaments he created were not only inspired by Russian traditional ornaments, but also Japanese, Middle Easters, Celtic and other ornaments.

Bilibin loved Russian tradition calligraphy, and developed the system which let him combine his illustrations with text and ornament.

 

The letters which started the story showed the main characters of the fairy tale. These letters also were drawn in the same style as the ornament that was placed at the end of the book.