Relevant children’s books written from a humanistic perspective
By Mai Misfeldt
Many children know and love the story of ‘The blue-eyed pussy’ who went to find the land with many mice. Egon Mathiesen (1907-76) was an author and a painter who was, at the same time, fascinated by children and education. As opposed to the norms of the times, Egon Mathiesen wrote at a child’s-eye level. His books are characterized by a humanistic faith, without becoming too didactic, that mankind can learn to live in tolerance and solidarity with the weak.
Mathiesen wrote and painted from and with pleasure and with an elegant union of language and color rhythm. He was an enthusiast of jazz music, movement, rhythm, and color tone. This was particularly expressed in his freewheeling ‘Blue Man’ from 1956, which is almost pure jazz through and through in its text and pictures.
One of Mathiesen’s most beloved children’s books is ‘Fredrik with the Car’, which was published in 1944 while World War II was raging. It is a poetic story, full of hope for greater fellowship between human beings, regardless of whether their color is black, red or white. We are a part of the same palette, as Mathiesen shows so well with his illustrations. The characteristic thing about Mathiesen’s illustrations is his precision – his courage to let the paper’s white surface grow a universe with simple, clear strokes of color. Perhaps, most beautifully in his story, ‘Oswald, the Monkey’, published in 1947 – about the courage to stand up to dominance and tyranny. It looks very simple, but it actually required many studies at the Zoo for Mathiesen to become free enough with his strokes to give Oswald his intense personality.
In ’ The Parrot Book’ from 1960, the child reader gets a delightful explosion of color, when the parrot spreads its wings. It is done simply and without artifice, also linguistically, and that is why, even today, Egon Mathiesen’s children’s books are still relevant and belong in a master class.
Translated by Russell Dees
