INDIVIDUAL AND CULTURAL FEATURES OF DESIGNING CHILDREN’S FAIRY TALES BY ARTISTS-ILLUSTRATORS OF RUSSIA AND CHINA BY THE EXAMPLE OF L. FRANK BAUM’S FAIRY TALE "THE WONDERFUL WIZARD OF OZ"
The article deals with the problem of separation of individual-stylistic and national-specific features of artists-illustrators, who designed children’s books of fairy tales. The objective of this study is to identify the national-specific features of Russian and Chinese artists. The research material is the works of four Russian and two Chinese artists, who at various periods of time illustrated the publications of Frank Baum’s fairy tale “The Wonderful Wizard of Oz” or the version of this tale in A. M. Volkov’s retelling “The Wizard of the Emerald City”. The author uses the method of the comparative pair and group analysis of illustrations, as well as the method of the multidimensional systemic analysis. Novelty of the research is that an algorithm for carrying out a comparative study in the field of investigating book illustrations of children’s literature is proposed and justified. According to the author, it would reduce the influence of the artist’s individual-stylistic features on the formation of the general picture of the reflection of national mentality in the works of illustrators from Russia and China.