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ESSAY / PINOCCHIO AND ART :

Never trust people who promise to make you rich in a day. They are generally crazy
swindlers
Carlo Collodi, Pinocchio.

This quote is extracted from the moment when Pinocchio thought he would earn a lot of
money by putting his own four gold coins into the soil. Eventually, Pinocchio's money was
stolen and he never got this easy money that was promised to him by the fox and the cat.
Carlo Collodi's life story is connected to the story of Pinocchio. The book Pinocchio e
Collodi tells us more about how Pinocchio was written. Collodi had to write the episodes that
were eventually gathered in the one book that we all know, but he never really believed that
the book he wrote would become one of the best-selling books in the world, and also one of
the most translated (with more than 240 translations). He used to be badly paid and
sometimes he would quit writing the tale for some weeks, but it was so successful that he
always had to continue until he finished. He also thought of killing Pinocchio at one point,
like Arthur Conan Doyle with Sherlock Holmes : but they both couldn't kill their main
character and eventually they had to continue the story. Thus, even though Collodi considered
Pinocchio as a simple fairy tale, as well as a story for children, he never thought that at any
point his tale would become something so important for the entire world and that the story
could speak to anyone.
The point here is to see that creativity truly matters and Collodi just intended to do something
for Children, he was a journalist, he worked against the oppressor, but he truly wanted to do
something valuable with his skill. Thus, in a way, as it inspired this introduction, the book
Pinocchio in volo tra immagini e letterature (11) said something really true about
masterpieces : Pinocchio was compared to Harry Potter and it said that the latter saw its
popularity decreasing very fast. Comparatively, Pinocchio was originally published in 1881

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and is still debated nowadays, as it's said in the book. Every year, a new illustrator want to
make its own edition of Pinocchio because it left its mark on several generations, even though
I'm sure that Disney certainly played some role in that. Anyway, the success of Harry Potter,
starting in 1997 with the publication of the book, slowly decreases nowadays even though it
certainly marked an entire generation, the generation of kids who could identify with him
and his whole world. What does it all mean? It means that Pinocchio has known in its own
way how to touch so many people that this dream-like tale is nowadays at the center of many
productions : two new Pinocchio movies are in preparation, including a Hollywood one
starring Robert Downey Junior as Gepetto and Pinocchio ; Pinocchio is therefore very real,
thus, the way that art can emphasize Pinocchio's impact will be discussed in the next sections,
relating to various artists from throughout the World. In the first part, we'll focus on a
comparison between art and illustration and reflect if illustration can be a form of art, to see if
eventually the illustrators of Pinocchio are creating art, looking at some of the brilliant cover
pages of Pinocchio and drawing conclusions about their different approaches. In the second
part, we'll look more precisely at the evolution of the illustration of Pinocchio in Italy and in
much details at Roberto Innocenti.

As defined in the Oxford online dictionary, Art is "The expression or application of human
creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture,
producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power". According
to this definition, a lot of creations of human beings can be considered Art, even though a
French student article (Relire Pinocchio, 37-47) tends to place Antonio Saura's work of
Pinocchio's book on a pedestal saying that this is art, because first it is placed in the art
section of the libraries and second because Antonio Saura is a very well-known Spanish
painter. In fact, that allows us to make our minds up in order to know if illustration is art and
if we are speaking about real artists or simply commercial designers.

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"People think illustrators are hired hands[they're] anything but, Theyre artists, and they
want to put themselves into everything they do, even though it has to be a picture of George
Bush; even though it has to be vertical because TIME magazine is published vertically; even
though it has to have the top 20 percent relatively detail-free so that the T-I-M-E shows"
attributed to Terrence Brown, the director of the society of illustrators shows us his vision of
this job he defends, but in fact, all of what he says makes sense and he definitely knows what
he is talking about. Whether it is sold or not, art remains art if it is a creation. On the blog
where this quote was found : <http://thevirtualinstructor.com/blog/is-illustration-art >, this
very debate takes place and it was interesting to realize that even during the Renaissance, art
was also a form of trade because the rich families were asking for special paintings, for
example the Roman Church who asked Michelangelo to paint the Sixtine chapel is basically
the same as a magazine asking an artist to do a cover with the same kind of creativity. So
illustration is art, and it allows us to discover more about all of the work that's done every
year by Pinocchio's illustrators.
The website http://joseph.cabioch.pagesperso-orange.fr/illust/illustr.htm shows 108 different
covers from different countries, proving what was said before, the styles are completely
different and vary a lot according to the country. What struck me among all of it was that Sto
(Sergio Tofano) took part in the process, he was into everything, whether Television, cinema
and also caricature, he live a full and meaningful life but he found time, among all these
things that he had to do, to work on Pinocchio. It's extraordinary to see that every kind of
person has worked on Pinocchio, this has to be said because there is a Russian author that is
rather unknown (http://joseph.cabioch.pagesperso-orange.fr/illust/burati/burati.htm) and also
not credited for his wonderful work : the cover and some images that can be seen inside are
really cute. Thus, the diversity made a lot of different people take part in the adventure of
designing Pinocchio's journey.

The first person to illustrate Pinocchio was Enrico Mazzanti. The website
<http://www.ricochet-jeunes.org/articles-critiques/article/37-pinocchio-et-ses-illustrateurs>

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gives us a good insight about his choices in terms of representation. First of all, Mazzanti is a
friend of Collodi, so he could get very interesting first-hand information. He could then create
something much more valuable, something that would have to be very close to what Collodi
could have wanted to represent himself. First of all, Mazzanti understood that even though it
can be considered as a moralizing story, the story of the puppet would be more powerful and
insightful if it was seen as a Fairy Tale. That way, he decided to create the image of Pinocchio
that is the first representation people have (except for those who are influenced by Disney) ;
we can see Pinocchio standing, very proud of himself, defying authority, imposing himself as
a symbol of youth, adventure, cheekiness and freedom. In the background, we can see many
of the different characters or major elements of the story, whether it is the snake or the blue
fairy, the fox and the cat, or the huge fish that some people think is a shark. This first scene
allows the parents and the children to see what kind of marvelous adventures Pinocchio is
about to live in the book, and back to that time it's certainly a clever marketing move because
the cover really matters and conveys a lot to the purchasers who are immediately attracted to
what seems interesting to them.
Pinocchio is thus, in this first image that we have of him, drawn with very rigid strokes,
showing the solidity of his wood, whereas the other characters have suppler designs, made of
light and shadow. What is interesting here is that children are seen as very strong characters,
and most of the children, before they become part of the society, are free and strong.
Pinocchio becomes a real symbol of the power that lies within children ; and the shadow,
often used to represent Pinocchio at some moments of the book, when he tell a lie for the first
time and his nose grows for example, there are ways to convey fear to children if they'd like
to disobey what's good for them : if you lie, look what happens, do you see what happened to
Pinocchio, he is just a shadow, a mere representation of himself, then if you lie, you lose
yourself : that's what this shadow conveys, it conveys fear. And in a certain ways, darkness
conveys fear as well, because it puts children in a position where they are not in control ; But
as Pinocchio always succeeds and goes beyond fear, it's a good example for children and it
can enhance their courage and reduce their fear about acting in the world. Thus, the work of

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Mazzanti, to which illustrations increased in number for every new edition of the book with
the first, the second and the fourth, is the first illustrative work ever done on Pinocchio that
has influenced and will influence other illustrators.
After Mazzanti, in 1901, it's up to Chiostri to reinvent Pinocchio's imaginary world with his
own vision. The style is very similar, the same kind of drawing with ink, but there are,
according to the same French website, very important differences. What matters now is to
represent Pinocchio as an introverted puppet to whom bad luck falls upon, he is an abnormal
element, extracted from imagination that lives in this very normal, usual world and it's
difficult for him. In fact, a lot of difficulties await him on his way and he has trouble
succeeding. The vision of Carlo Chiostri is therefore a debilitating one : he shows us a
Pinocchio that is always under reproving looks, as if he shouldn't be here, as if all the strange
and unnatural things had to be put aside and would prevent life from continuing. This kind of
vision can be seen this way : if children don't behave well, like the puppet, that's what would
happen to them, they'd be discarded, and people wouldn't even take a look at them. So,
compared to the first adaptation, this one is a lot more moralizing and also darker, because of
the representation of the puppet himself : he is always smaller than the other characters, and
has to relate to the elements (for example, when he faces the ocean that dominates him), he is
also very jaded about what he lives and seems very unhappy most of the time, not
understanding what's going on around him and why the entire world is against him.
The last one of the three Italian illustrators of that section is called Attilio Mussino, he
illustrated a version of The Adventures Of Pinocchio published in 1911 (and several other
editions) and what's particularly notable in his work is the way that he uses colors to give life
to his drawings. The French article gives a good vision of this illustrator because he is the
first one to draw with colors, previously, the images didn't have that much color and the
drawings were intended to be seen without color. At this point, the illustrators used those
colors in order to create some ambiance.
For example, he uses a lot of contrasts in order to lead the reader's eye to some important
elements like the crowd in the drawing at the bottom of the page

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(http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Italian_Studies/DP/projects/thewoods/Artists/Attilio
%20Mussino.html). The colors used here are very bright, with a dominance of red and
yellow, which are very bright colors, here to attract the reader's eye, and also the presence of
cooler colors to complete the landscape of the street and also state that no one would be
against Pinocchio in the crowd that stays at the edge of the street like a big, insurmountable
wall that Pinocchio, scared, doesn't seem to notice at all. In this scene, the puppet is very
rigid, with no special color, he is clearly not emphasized and he is the attraction of the
moment, like for Carnival and he can't do anything to change it at that very moment.
The way Mussino draws in very different and much more colourful ways, really working to
make colors fit exactly the moment, using for example dark blue and black in order to
emphasize the idea of the night and then create a feeling of fear and oppression. But Mussino
is also one of the creators of the illustrated books in the way that he placed his images in the
book, indeed, Mussino had a lot of liberty in the way he could put all of these vignettes.
Therefore, he changed the habits and created something new. People in Italy really loved the
way he renewed illustrated books and he did a lot of different illustrations for Pinocchio later
on, because his style was famous, because he was a creative person and because he was
immensely effective in the way he was dealing with the work he had to do.

But in a very different style, there is Roberto Innocenti's work. Using Pinocchio : Entre texte
et image as a book of reference, we'll try to understand more about how the drawing interacts
with the writings and vice-versa. First, we'll try to understand the architecture of the book,
secondly, we'll deal with a gradation and the use of this structure to serve the purpose of the
text, and eventually we'll see how the blue fairy and Pinocchio relate to each other thanks to
well placed images and we'll speak about the cover and back pages in the context of the story.
Twelve different formats have been used all as a way of giving diverse tonalities to the
images (127-129). Of course, there is always the square, the rectangular (whether horizontal
or vertical) shapes that are used most of the time, but the use of initial letters is definitely
more unusual. In fact, the illustrator decided to add those initial letters, they are always paired

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with a drawing and it's certainly very attractive to children to see the characters being close to
those letters : showing the way that reading is also fun and that the characters have an interrelated story with those letters that gave birth to those images. But those images are not
extracted from the ongoing chapter, they are additions and pauses, and they present new
situations accomplished by the characters of the book : this process, common nowadays in
illustrated books is also used in Asia, especially in Japan, in manga. Those comic books,
made in Japan, allow some action to take place between the chapter, like a story within the
story that can be followed by the people who read them : the little story that takes place can
be short and simply be an image of the characters doing something, it would be that a way to
see them in daily life for example ; or it's about a story that can be followed and covers a part
of the real story that would normally be barely sensed. Pinocchio would follow the first type
of story within the story with some little scenes related to some moments that couldn't be
developed in a bigger image. Anyway, as we said, the book is not illustrated like it would
normally be : it uses a lot of different image formats. But each of those serves a certain
purpose, as it is easily understandable, a small image represents a moment that wouldn't need
to be emphasized specifically but which is in the book and therefore has to be drawn, whereas
the biggest images, like for example the double page of the puppets theatre would represent
something extraordinary and memorable as it is of course in the book. Then, eventually, all of
these different kinds of representations constitute an architecture, because it has to give light
to the content of the book : as we've just said, Mussino is the one who invented in some ways
these kinds of modern illustrated books, but it has to be said that Innocenti really magnified
and improved it by giving to the illustrated books its credentials.
Anyway, all of the shapes the images can take allows for many things to take place (129130). For example, in chapters 4, 5 and 6, there is a gradation and the format of the image and
its disposition help reinforce the message. The images are at the top of the page and they are
rectangular for the first two chapters, they represent a frustrated Pinocchio, hugged in a
corner of the house after having killed the talking cricket. The second image represents
Pinocchio who realizes that he won't be able to eat : this second one is slightly bigger and

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eventually in chapter six, there are two images that take two entire pages. Those are twin
images representing basically the same scene : a house. The gradation is the size of the
images and the amplification of the format is proportional to Pinocchio's desire to have a
good meal and eventually, after he got rained on, his will to feel warmth again only added to
his hunger and precariousness.
But this process of using images in order to create interesting effects is often used in the
book (131-133). There is an important scene where Pinocchio, followed by the thieves, begs
the little girl to accept him in the house ; the little girl claims to be dead and Pinocchio ends
up hanged. Thus, two images can be set next to each other : the first one, whose "camera"
shows Pinocchio looking from left to right in the direction of the fairy, and a second one, a
really wonderful one, showing the little girl looking to her left through a window, a big bird
close to her. These two images relate to eachother and are a real dialogue, Pinocchio on his
knees, imploring the little girl and her gazing at Pinocchio full of an explainable riddle,
because she certainly knew that everything would be okay anyway. She would have reacted if
he would have been in any real kind of danger, but the resourcefulness of the puppet will
eventually allow him to meet the girl a bit later. This iconography of the blue will come back
later on with the blue butterflies close to the tomb of the fairy. The blue is a sign of hope,
showing the cycle of life and death and being reborn, as Pinocchio has to experience a lot
during the book.
The cover page of Innocenti's version of Pinocchio is presenting a version of the story as it
could have taken place, it places the characters of the story in a street of Pinocchio's village
(141-142). But whereas Pinocchio would normally meet the fox and the cat, those two are
placed in the dark and some blue flowers are located where they would normally be. This
version of Pinocchio's first day of school would be an ideal version where the blue fairy
would have protected Pinocchio, but who knows what could happen one day, or two days
after. The real purpose of this front page would be to make the reader think about what would
happen in the story, and that way, maybe he/she would like to acquire the book : leading a
potential consumer to think, imagine and eventually like a book for its cover is a good way to

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sell it. Because it's also the purpose of creating visuals : it's about selling a product and
therefore making it interesting, pleasant to the eye and make the reader want to enter this
imaginary world.

Eventually, the illustration of Pinocchio has evolved a lot since Mazzanti began to work.
Starting by being functional and refined, the work about Pinocchio slowly evolved until it
reached climax with Innocenti who proposed a disproportionate work full of color, a certain
light and a very effective treatment that led a lot of people to like his work : which also
explains why he is the only artist to have his entire section in Pinocchio : Entre texte et
image. Thus, like the back cover of Innocenti's book, the life in Tuscany has evolved but
Pinocchio is still here like in this modern representation of the same places in this imaginary
town ; a lot of things have changed but the puppet is still very popular and will remain this
way as it's still equally entertaining for the children of our time.

Word count : excluding references : 3492 words.

including references : 3642 words.

Bibliography :

Primary source :
Collodi, Carlo. The Adventures of Pinocchio. Oxford
Paperbacks.
2009.

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Secondary Sources :

Dedola, Rossana. Pinocchio e Collodi. Bruno Mondadori. 2002.

Dedola, Rossana & Casari, Mario. Pinocchio in volo tra

immagini e letterature. Bruno Mondadori. 2008.

Perrot, Jean. Pinocchio entre texte et image. P.I.E. Peter Lang

S.A. . 2003.

Gasparini, Giovanni. La corsa di Pinocchio. Milano : Vita e

Pensiero. 1997. pagina 117. ISBN 88-343-4889-3

< http://joseph.cabioch.pagesperso-orange.fr/illust/illustr.htm
>
( This website is the one presenting the different Pinocchio
book covers, thus it's not an article )

Despinette, Janine. "Pinocchio et ses illustrateurs". Les articles

critiques. 12 Apr. 2014. < http://www.ricochetjeunes.org/articles-critiques/article/37-pinocchio-et-sesillustrateurs>.

"Attilio Mussino". Artists. 12 Apr. 2014.

<http://www.brown.edu/Departments/Italian_Studies/DP/projects/thewoods/Ar
tists/Attilio%20Mussino.html>

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"Art". Oxford dictionaries language matters. 11 Apr. 2014.

<http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/art>
Fussell, Matt. "Is illustration art?". The virtual instructor. 27
Dec. 2010. 13 Apr. 2014. <
http://thevirtualinstructor.com/blog/is-illustration-art >

Le Terme, Lydie. "Relire Pinocchio". Ouvrelivres. Sep. 2012. 14

Apr. 2014.
< http://ouvrelivres.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/pinocchiolydie-le-terme.pdf>