Three Cats (1992)

Three Cats (1992)
Anne Brouillard
Casebound, illustrated paper over boards, sewn, dustjacket. H280 x W223 mm. [28] pages. Acquired from private seller, 27 August 2023.
Photos: Books On Books Collection.

This wordless picture book tells a humorous brief tale of three curious cats and three insouciant fish. It marks an early stage in Anne Brouillard’s journey from picture book artist to book artist.

Her reputation as an illustrator of children’s books was recognized with the Hans Christian Andersen Prize in 2020.

Three Topsy-Turvy Tales (1992)

Three Topsy-Turvy Tales (1992)
Anne Brouillard
Hardback, casebound, illustrated paper over boards, illustrated doublures. [60] pages. H200 x W199 mm. Acquired from Suzanne and Truman Price, Old Children’s Books, 25 May 2025.
Photos: Books On Books Collection.

This was the second of Brouillard’s own wordless picture books. In it, we can see the development of her pictorial narrative skills as well as play with page orientation.

L’Orage (1998)

L’Orage (1998)
Anne Brouillard
Casebound, illustrated paper over boards, sewn. H297 x W210 mm. [44] pages. Acquired from Amazon, 31 July 2023.
Photos: Books On Books Collection.

According to the French critic Isabelle Nières-Chevrel, Brouillard’s L’orage (The storm, 1998) constitutes “one of the finest examples of a narrative carried entirely by the image.” —  Beckett, p. 83.

In L’orage, the action is essentially limited to a cat entering a house and two strollers being caught in the rain. In Brouillard’s picturebooks, characters are not clearly defined; they are vague figures, reflections, shadows. As one would expect, the illustrator has a predilection for painting landscapes. With her medium of choice — egg tempera — she creates atmospheric and sensual scenes that are often set in the countryside. … L’orage presents a series of inside and outside views of a house in the country as a storm approaches, breaks out, and gradually subsides. Isabelle Nières-Chevrel rightly describes it as a “meteorological narrative”. — Beckett, p. 138.

Entirely wordless narrative artists’ books in the collection are few. Even narratives with words are rare. Michael Snow’s Cover to Cover (1975) claims pride of place among the wordless variety. Chinese Whispers (1975) by Helen Douglas & Telfer Stokes and Detour (1989) by Jan Voss also stand out as completely wordless. Philip Zimmermann’s Landscapes of the Late Anthropocene (2017) and Melt (2023) come close with their sequences of sunrise to sunset graphics and a flipbook image of a glass of melting ice, respectively, but both rely on juxtaposed text to deliver fully the message of environmental degradation.

To conclude with neat evidence of a strong link between children’s books and artists’ books, here is Brouillard’s Voyage d’Hiver (2013), unequivocally an artist’s book and wordlessly drawn and painted across a panoramic accordion structure.

Voyage d’Hiver (2013)

Voyage d’Hiver (2013)
Anne Brouillard
Softcover leporello of thick matte paper. Closed: H165 x W115 x D30 mm; Open: W4400 mm. [38] panels + spine. Acquired from private seller, 28 August 2023.
Photos: Books On Books Collection.

Brouillard’s Voyage d’Hiver, published by Esperleute, consists of one long accordion-fold panel extending over 12 feet in length displaying a color panoramic tableau a European landscape in wintertime seen through a train window. Brouillard exploits the folds and multiple spreads of the accordion-book structure to extend this work beyond the convention of picture book.

Further Reading

“Helen Douglas“. 24 February 2020. Books On Books Collection.

“Michael Snow“. 3 March 2021. Books On Books Collection.

“Jan Voss“. 25 June 2024. Books On Books Collection.

“Philip Zimmermann“. 14 January 2020. Books On Books Collection.

Beckett Sandra L. 2013. Crossover Picturebooks : A Genre for All Ages. London: Routledge. See p. 138.

Cave Roderick and Sara Ayad. 2017. A History of Children’s Books in 100 Books. London: British Library Publishing Division, pp. 26-27.

Nikolajeva, Maria, and Carole Scott. 2007. How picturebooks work. New York: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group.

Outlaw, Christopher. 17 April 2017. “FILBo 2017“. The Bogotá Post. Accessed 30 October 2011.

Scott, Carole. 2014. “Artists’ books, Altered books, and Picturebooks”. In: B. Kümmerling‐Meibauer, ed., Picturebooks: Representation and Narration. London, New York: Routledge.