Synopsis: When Katie and her grandma make one of their regular visits to the art gallery, Katie wants to know what makes Mona Lisa smile. On climbing into the picture, however, Katie soon finds out that Leonardo’s famous sitter could do with some cheering up. Luckily, Katie is just the person for the job.

Review: James Mayhew’s cleverly conceived ‘Katie’ series introduces children to western art, by literally taking their amiable heroine into a series of famous paintings. On this occasion, Katie explores five works from the Italian Renaissance. When her adventures lead characters from all five paintings to converge in the gallery, (including Raphael’s St George and the dragon and Carpaccio’s winged Lion of St. Mark), there is the usual good-humoured mayhem.

In the opening pages, the illustrations capture the smallness of a child in a vast, shining marble gallery. The featured paintings are all reproduced initially from photographs, but as Katie enters the frames, the subjects are brought to life by Mayhew’s watercolours and loosely drawn sepia lines, making them lighter, brighter, more dynamic and accessible. The text is relatively long for a picturebook and may be suitable for independent readers to tackle alone, but could be shared with less able readers, particularly if a gallery trip is planned.

Lucky Katie is able to view paintings that are normally kept in separate galleries in four different countries, and also has the luxury of a gallery pretty much to herself. Not only is she able to see the paintings easily, but she actually gets close enough to touch them, so a certain amount of expectation management will be needed, if this book is used before visiting a gallery with children who have never done so before!

As adults, we tend to focus heavily on the need to understand the historical context of a painting, leading some visitors to spend less time looking at works of art, than reading their accompanying labels! The real beauty of this book is that it can liberate the viewer to regard art through fresh eyes. Katie gives us permission to use our imagination and make up our own stories about what we see in the art of the Renaissance. A sprinkling of facts about the artists on the final page encourages further research if wanted, but ultimately, these books are a reminder to gallery-goers of all ages that it’s really all about looking.

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2008-06-17