Coloring Between the Lines

Children’s books are the perfect introduction to the world of art. Works of art themselves, they are concise and attractive; they inform and entertain. Parents also will find these books a welcome change from the dry, massive tomes aimed at them.

Publisher Harry N. Abrams offers a series titled First Impressions (ages 10 and up, $17.95 each). An introduction to art history and appreciation, each book focuses on the life and work of a different master.

In Marc Chagall, author Howard Greenfeld masterfully paints the life of one of the greatest colorists of the 20th Century from modest beginnings to world renown. The son of a herring-warehouse laborer in a tiny Russian town, Chagall was a poor student and showed no inclination toward drawing and painting until the age of 19. Even then he failed many times to get into traditional art schools. Despite years of poverty and countless obstacles, Chagall persisted, and his story is an inspiration.

The book is superbly designed and profusely illustrated. Using many drawings and full-color plates, the text breathes and flows across the page. The story is enhanced by the autobiographical nature of Chagall’s wry, humorous drawings and his extraordinarily colorful paintings. Especially vivid are the imaginative leaps of Chagall’s first years in Paris--an explosion of creativity, vitality and color (“his colors sing,” one of the artist’s teachers said).

Greenfield captures the sense of excitement and desperation felt by a young artist in a great city, as well as the warmth of Chagall’s character and family life, which seems to come straight out of an Isaac Bashevis Singer novel (“Aunt Nelly, whose nose was like a pickle”).

Leonardo da Vinci by Richard McLanathan is one of the best books on this Renaissance master currently available for children or adults. A welcome mix of artwork and biography in a manageable format, it embodies one of the great qualities of children’s books--brevity, the soul of wit. The book is a handsomely designed ensemble of drawings and paintings, whose illustrations from Leonardo’s notebooks lend themselves especially well to this graphic treatment. Well written, with clear, short sentences, the book is an invitation to the eye. There are fascinating contemporary descriptions of Leonardo and his personal life, including his close relationship with the Melzi family and his adoption of their son. The reader will find little-known details about Da Vinci’s life, such as his letter to the ruler of the Turks and an imaginary journey to Asia Minor. The author ties many strands together to develop a full picture of the artist and his age (“While Leonardo’s life was gaining some stability, the same could not be said for Italy”).

Mary Cassatt by Susan E. Meyer faithfully traces the life of this 19th-Century American artist. Cassatt’s personal life does not provide particularly dramatic revelations--she was a rather prim, proper Victorian lady--but her professional life does.

She was born in 1844 to a prosperous Pennsylvania family who initially encouraged her interest in art, but when she announced her decision to become a professional artist her parents were horrified. “I would almost rather see you dead,” her father cried out. Faced with resistance at every turn, she learned most by studying on her own in Paris. There the pivotal moment in her life came when she met the Impressionists and developed a close friendship with prickly, irascible Edgar Degas.

She was accepted as their equal and, as the author points out, “was almost single-handedly responsible for introducing the paintings of the French Impressionists to the United States.” Her struggle and success in a man’s world remain an inspiration for young women of today.

Andrew Wyeth by Richard Meryman is an unusually intimate and candid portrayal of a contemporary American artist. The book is almost as much about Andrew’s father, N. C. Wyeth, who was a titanic force in Andrew’s life and the most famous illustrator of his day. In fact, the book ends with the father’s death.

Now more famous than his father, Andrew Wyeth still lives very much in his shadow--a relationship not unlike that of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart to his father Leopold. The Wyeths seems to have created a very self-contained, sheltered world--Andrew never went to school but was tutored at home, a place where his talents were encouraged and his imagination ran wild.

With many close-up views of the artist’s creative process, this is an intensely personal and psychological portrait.

While the Abrams series is aimed at older children, younger children will not feel left out thanks to the series Lines, Shapes, Colors and Stories by Philip Yenawine (The Museum of Modern Art/Delacorte Press: $14 each; ages 4-8). Yenawine, director of the department of education at the Museum of Modern Art, has created an excellent introduction to modern art and the principles at play in works of all periods. The books can be bought individually, but as a set they complement and build on each other:

“Lines” depicts the versatile qualities of lines (“Lines can sparkle and wiggle”) and how they form the basis of shapes. “Shapes” demonstrates how variations on simple forms like circles, squares and triangles combine to form more complex ones. “Colors” focuses on the different moods, feelings and spatial relations evoked by color. “Stories” presents thought-provoking questions and stimulating clues about how to “read” a painting as a whole.

Each book is filled with questions, drawing the reader in and making it a participatory experience. The texts are brief, simple, even poetic at times, a sense of humor always lurking between the lines. The pictures are striking examples of the concepts being presented, the layout bold and uncluttered. End notes provide additional information for parents and teachers.

Each book ends with an invitation to the reader to experiment and try his own pictures. By demystifying the creative process, Yenawine inspires his readers to use lines, shapes and colors to create stories on their own. That in itself is a work of art.

Another innovative approach to modern art for younger children can be found in A Visit to the Art Galaxy (Green Tiger Press/Simon & Schuster: $15.95; ages 6 and up), written by Los Angeles writer and painter Annie Reiner. A sense of fun and whimsy abounds throughout, starting with endpapers filled with swirling stars, planets, galaxies and paintbrushes.

Forced by their mother to spend the day at the art museum, Peter and Bess are kidnaped by a Mark Rothko painting that turns into a spaceship and takes them to the Land of Modern Art. There they meet Matisse, Picasso, Franz Kline, Chris Burden and Leonardo da Vinci (“He was modern in his day,” explains Matisse) and learn to paint for themselves.

Reiner’s loose, colorful story and brush strokes create a sense of lightness and levity, the figures suspended in space, weightless and free, a metaphor for the liberating quality of modern art. While the transition to the Land of Modern Art and back home again is a bit abrupt, all is forgiven, for as Matisse explains to Peter and Bess: “All paints are magic in the Land of Modern Art. . . . Have fun!”