depicted is the important object in the picture, and therefore the most likely candidate
to be ‘Mr Gumpy’.
As does in fact turn out to be the case—but only for those who know the most
elementary conventions of reading books: that the front of the book is the cover with the
bound edge on the left, and that the pages must be looked at in a certain order, across
each double-page spread from left to right and then a turn to the page on the other side
of the right-hand sheet. And of course, these conventions do not operate for books
printed in Israel or Japan, even if those books contain only pictures, and no Hebrew or
Japanese words.
In other words: picture books like Mr Gumpy’s Outing convey ‘simple delight’ by
surprisingly complex means, and communicate only within a network of conventions
and assumptions, about visual and verbal representations and about the real objects
they represent. Picture books in general, and all their various components, are what
semioticians call ‘signs’—in Umberto Eco’s words (1985: 176), ‘something [which] stands
to somebody for something else in some respect or capacity’.
The most significant fact about such representations is the degree to which we take
them for granted. Both adults and children do see books like Mr Gumpy as simple, even
obvious, and as I discovered myself in the exercise I report above, it takes effort to
become aware of the arbitrary conventions and distinctions we unconsciously take for
granted, to see the degree to which that which seems simply natural is complex and
artificial.
It’s for that reason that such exercises are so important, and that thinking of picture
books in semiotic terms is our most valuable tool in coming to understand them.
According to Marshall Blonsky, ‘The semiotic “head”, or eye, sees the world as an
immense message, replete with signs that can and do deceive us and lie about the
world’s condition’ (1985: vii). Because we assume that pictures, as iconic signs, do in
some significant way actually resemble what they depict, they invite us to see objects as
the pictures depict them—to see the actual in terms of the fictional visualisation of it.
Indeed, this dynamic is the essence of picture books. The pictures ‘illustrate’ the texts
—that is, they purport to show us what is meant by the words, so that we come to
understand the objects and actions the words refer to in terms of the qualities of the
images that accompany them—the world outside the book in terms of the visual images
within it. In persuading us that they do represent the actual world in a simple and
obvious fashion, picture books are particularly powerful deceivers.
Furthermore, the intended audience of picture books is by definition inexperienced—in
need of learning how to think about their world, how to see and understand themselves
and others. Consequently, picture books are a significant means by which we integrate
young children into the ideology of our culture.
As John Stephens suggests, ‘Ideologies...are not necessarily undesirable, and in the
sense of a system of beliefs by which we make sense of the world, social life would be
impossible without them’ (1992:8). But that does not mean that all aspects of social life
are equally desirable, nor that all the ideology conveyed by picture books is equally
acceptable. Picture books can and do often encourage children to take for granted views
of reality that many adults find objectionable. It is for this reason above all that we need
to make ourselves aware of the complex significations of the apparently simple and
ILLUSTRATION AND PICTURE BOOKS 113