Masha du Toit

I’m always saying “you can’t really get an impression of this book from my scans”.  But in the case of John Burningham’s Seasons, that is truer than ever.  Each (large) page is filled edge to edge with pattern and texture, and the book contains four fold out sections (one for each season) each of which folds out to about A2 size.  Huge!

The illustrations are rich and varied – a combination of ink and crayon soaked, washed, scratched, layered and scrubbed into life.

Its too dark for me to take a photograph of the fold outs now – so I’ll have to include them in a separate post.

The premise of this book is simple.  The text focuses briefly on different aspects of each of the four seasons.  There are very few words, but each phrase is elaborated with a luscious full page illustration.  Here are some aspects of spring – each of these images is a little larger than an A4 page.

Some lively crows nesting in a sunny treetop:

A friendly yellow beaked duck dabbling in the warm, mossy water:

Summer, with some fearsome insects:

and a summery family picnic in the sun:

Autumn with flying leaves and running dogs.

An autumn evening with bonfires under the trees:

A frosty winter fox:

And of course, we end up back at spring, with birds nesting:

I’ve chosen just one or two from each season, but there are many more.  This is a very comforting book – so friendly, funny and uncomplicated.