Fairytale Collection: The Red Candle and The Mermaid (童話集: 赤いろうそくと人魚)

Mitsumasa Yasuno (安野光雅)

Born in Tsuwano, Shimane in 1926, Yasuno was an illustrator and author specializing in children's books. He took great interest in art and the literature of Hermann Hesse during high school and following his time in the military during World War II, he studied at Yamaguchi Teacher Training College (Yamaguchi University) and taught math to elementary school students before fully pursuing art. He moved to Tokyo and began working on his picture books that featured elements of his interests in humor, foreign cultures, math and science. His main mediums include pen and ink as well as watercolor, collage, or woodblock printing methods. Among his notable accolades, he received the International Hans Christian Andersen Medal in 1984 for his "lasting contribution to children's literature as well as awards for cultural merit and other book design/picture book related awards. His works are well cherished in Japan and in his hometown, Tsuwano, there is a Mitsumasa Anno Museum that displays many of his works.

This book cover design is very witty and dynamic in movement while simple in use of color. It depicts a promenade of 3 characters; 2 clown like ones playing or pretending to play a horn and a woman in the center that is directly facing us. The palette is black and white with accents of orange and green in the background for the foliage design and smaller elements such as little elephants walking alongside the 3 main characters or blush used in the character designs themselves. The drawing is very angular and the parade is moving alongside the bottom green square that visually implies there is more in the scene that we can see and the way the characters are drawn is quite humourous.