Notes From the practical peer review

One of the things that was flagged in the review was how to clearly show the link between my practical and my essay. I don't really know how to do that visually right now. but the origin of my idea to villains was about how they are often the sources of conflict in children's book and that without them there would be little to no conflict.

I've got to explore the paper stock available to me as if it's printed on flimsy paper it'll just break as soon as you try to use it.

The biggest issue that was raised was about the age range for this as the type of book I'm making is often most popular with younger children but some of the villains are from an older age ranged book, like Mrs coulter. However I was thinking that I could propose something like a sit a long book or a synopsis on the back of each character like what was previously suggested to me. I think this would get the younger children interested in some of the older books and may encourage more reading. This would also tie in to my essay where I say that children should be the ones who chose when to read a book without the constraints of age range restrictions. I think this will have to be a proposal as I don't think I'll have time to actually produce this effectively while I also need to work out how to create the book.

More practical

I've worked a bit more on my practical sides, I've been looking at how the posture affects the impression the character gives. I've also been exploring how to draw the character when I have to be able to cut the page into three, they obviously need to have different sizes as the heads don't need as much room as the legs. This was easy when it came to Mrs Coulter as she's tall and slender but I was worried the more squat, built characters wouldn't fit to the measurements that I drew out (6cm down for the head, 15cm down for just below the pelvis). To test it out I tried to draw Miss Trunchbull to the same plan, which did work so I'll try using those measurements for all. While I was only meant to be doing a quick sketch of Miss Trunchbull I got a bit caught up and wanted to make her look like her. As I'd already started drawing her I decided to properly work out how to draw her and what to exaggerate. After this I drew a proper version and inked it. The guidelines of where to cut actually really helped to keep the proportions in line. I did quite bait of playing around with her head as I wanted to suggest that she was looking down at you, I think the one where you can see under her chin works best for suggesting this but the one with her chin further down worked better visually so I used that one for the final instead.

Notes & Quotes & Failure

I'm now up to page 232 in my big book of very useful information and approaching halfway. The problem is that I have no words so far only notes, ideas and quotes to use and I need to finnish this book before I can make sense of everything I do have and make a coherent essay draft. I've been going to atlas three times a week and spending hours each time reading and note taking but I'm not making progress fast enough for the draft and I don't know how I could speed up without ignoring everything else I have to do. I'm starting to get really rather stressed about this as I can't see a way for me to finish something in time for the 10th when I'm supposed to send my draft of 3,000-4,000 words in.

Mrs. Coulter

I get Fidgety in sessions so I started doodling mrs coulter in the peer review as she's the one I'm most drawn to. She has to be grown up and sophisticated, beautiful and cold. In these drawings you can see some of the notes I've made myself on how to make her villainous. 

I think this version is slightly too angular as Lyra has to look up to her as well as her being a villain but it should be a good shape for cruella. I also played around with eye shapes and I'd discovered that it had to be almost reptilian and the eyes had to be small as they look a bit more un-caring.

I think this one still needs work but I'm pretty happen with the composition as it'll keep all the sections in the right place for cutting later. It also gave me a good way to show her deamon.

Feedback complication

In the peer review session one of my feedback forms has raised an issue that the other one hasn't. One says that 10 characters in a mix and match book isn't a substantial enough brief while the other doesn't mention anything about it. I had thought it was substantial as I've never designed villains before or attempted a mix and match book and I'd rather not give myself too much work to do as I don't have a lot of time to do it in and it'll take m a while to design each character. However I see his point that 10 may not be very many, even though I liked keeping it with the top tens I originally sourced them from, he's suggested printing little bio's or stories about the villains on the blank side (which I was hoping to keep blank to not overcomplicate) that can be mixed up as well as the characters. This would be good because it would add another layer to my work and make it a little more interactive and informative but it would also have some complications as I hadn't wanted to print double sided and each section won't be even as the head will need the least room and the legs will need the most. I had also planned on mixing up the characters from the start to show that they're meant to be played with. Although it could just be that I'm getting stressed about timing so I should investigate it anyway and then if I don't have time or it doesn't work out I can drop it further down the line. 

This is the diagram of his proposed idea that he very helpfully drew for me on the back of my feedback form 

Practical notes, villains and their literary descriptions

Sorry all of these notes are in pencil but I think better when I can scribble something down. The first list is sourced from several different top ten lists that were a mixture of literary surveys and just somebody's opinions. I only put the recurring villains on the list and then chose the ones I thought would be most suitable and appropriate. You can also see a small diagram I quickly drew to make sense of the format, and have my notes on what I have to do for it. The rest of my notes are all of the literary descriptions of the characters I could find. I've been making sure not to look at any adaptation (like disney) descriptions as my ideas of how to draw these famous villains will get skewed. Unfortunately some of the villains like the big bad wolf and the grinch have very little description that I can base it on and I might have to swap the grinch out all together, even though he's a beloved children's book villain.

Mix and Match book

http://www.instructables.com/id/I-can-make-that-Mix-N-Match-Book/step4/Make-the-book/

I found this set of instructions to help me make the book but it seem really unprofessional and not all of it applies to me but I hope to get the basic idea from this and mix it with some book binding to make a product.

Exquisite Corpse

After investigating exquisite corpses I was reminded of those mix and match books that I played with as a kid. I think this would be a fun, appropriate and interactive way of displaying my villainous characters.

Tutorial notes and what to do from here

Look into:

• Phoenix comics 
• Flying eye books
• Perrault
• Brothers grimn
• common denominators with villains 
• exquisite corpse - good practical idea as I could do top ten villains as a mix and match
• primary source? speak to librarians? 

To do:

• Practical sketches and plan for next thursday 
• Email Teresa with by the 10th with my 3,000 to 4,000 words or draft of chapter 1 and 2 

Timing stress/chapter 1 structure

I've had a bit of a stress this week as I've felt like Ive got no time and even with going to atlas three times this week I've not made enough progress to start my draft. From this stress I started my chapter 1 structure on the buses to and fro from my dentist appointment.

• Fairytales at the start of the essay
• quote about the origin of all children's literature pg 25
• articles about fairy tales 
• article about fairytales and nazis 
• quote about rehashing fairytales pg 26 - segue 
• Enid Blyton - old stories for a new audience pg 41
• A.J.P Taylor a mixture of escapism and wish fulfilment pg 43
• Tolkien segue? escapism (world building) but with strong ties to reality and obvious message / use of religion (as opposed to Enid Blyton)
• Quote about how LOFTR drew on memories of 1ww but was also influenced by the 2ww (mention of working class being more prominent post 1ww) (segue between escapism and reality)
• Atomic fiction here? mention of how there are ties between mt. doom and atomic warfare
• segue into W.E. johns and Biggles use joint quote with Tolkien about memories of 1ww pg5
• leads to feminist character mention pg 6
• say about while some made whole worlds different from our own and the situation we were in, others had either an existing series of books or comics what already existed in our reality that had little choice but to show the war. these were able to to talk more blatantly about the current mood and mindset of the time.
• brave activist quote pg 7
• Johns uses Biggles as his political voice pg 91 (also mention about child characters were also able to do this as they could speak in that honest blunt way that children do)
• use of unpleasant characters to denounce unsavoury traits pg 50 
• Biggles drew attention to things "polite" middle class children shouldn't know about pg 88
• isolationism was the zeitgeist pg 14 when not it was very inter nation (friendly to our allies) pg 20   inclusive and start of better diversity pg 22-25 ( include here or after Biggles? will tie in well with contemporary) 
• Biggles was translated into Norwegian  and Swedish which may explain why he wrote about the finish war pg 60 despite never going there (which led to the location seeming less real than usual) 
• Johns made it clear that there was nothing phoney about the Finish war pg 60 
• segue into Fin. war being the root of the moomins and loop back to escapism, world building, religion and root in folklore 
• how conflict isn't always literal fighting
• link Tove's feminism with feminist pilot mentioned earlier. also sexism
• Thingummy & bob - lesbian 
• Look through life art words for more details

Mrs Athas

I've mentioned this coffee shop before but I'd just like to say about how I've got into a pretty good system there lately. I'll go there and read my big book writing quotes & notes until my brain can't absorb any more, then I'll do a bit of my 603 that relates to there until I can get back into my quotes & notes. I've done this three times this week and I think it's the way forward for me as I can't focus either at home or in the studio but at Athas I have to be doing it or I've got nothing to do.

Articles I have found

I've been collecting all the interesting articles/books/journals I've been finding in my bookmarks. After a friend told me about an article on the guardian that could be relevant I've found 13 new articles of various use. Some of them directly useful and some of them that just have the odd good quote. 

Visual villains and conflict

Follow Rosie's board villains on Pinterest. I've been thinking that perhaps I should limit myself some how, maybe to one book series or one theme? I'd really like to do his dark materials or harry potter or a series of unfortunate events I think. I also had a thought about maybe doing a zine bout several different types of villains with what their daemons from his dark materials would look like.but I'm really not quite sure yet. This post is supposed to have a widget which shows what I've been looking at on pinterest but it doesn't seem to want to work, If you click on the link it'll take you over to my board that has them on.

It Arrived!

The book about children's fiction in the second world war has arrived in the library and I have started to read it. Unfortunately I definitely won't have time to finish it before I'm supposed to have a first draft of chapter one in. Oh well, I'll start anyway.

Where I am and What I need to do

Notes:

• My title is still a little broad
• Who is the audience? e.g. How old are the children?
• It seems to be World building that I'm interested in
• the things kids don't quite understand (eg. depression in books) causes questions to be asked and raises awareness - just like words and vocabulary 
• I need to find and read more journals
• I should email the book trust about books with conflict in
• I should look on good reads for books
• I should speak to Liberians 
• I should look for some bloggers
• kids love to be scared - find Neil Gaiman quote
• The rules of hope in kids books, eg. the kid has to survive the book, safe in the end or are capable of defending themselves 

Recommended reads:

• The rabbits - colonisation (picture book)
• The horn book
• Leviathan - steam punk, alt. WWI
• His dark materials 
• The graveyard book 

Practical:

• Try to bring conflict in
• In storm kissed she argues with her mum - something like that?
• Visual metaphors? depression etc.?
• strong emotions?

Task for two weeks time:

• Key images
• draft of first chapter = WWII chapter

What and How task

I will research into how conflict is shown in children's fiction and what affect it has. I became interested in this after reading Tove Jansson's official biography (Life, Art, Words), and I realised that I was much more interested in how reality bleeds through into children's books and how big, difficult, concepts are presented to children. As no matter how much we pretend to be children too, we are still grown ups with grown up concepts that are a little forgien to kids. It will hopefully contribute to my practice by teaching me something about writing children's books and furthering my knowledge of how to create fantasy worlds.

I'm going to read a wide range of children's books, academic books and journals. I'm going to use qualitative methods to interpret the text and use data to infer and compare the use of imagery and symbolism to reference conflict to a children's demographic. my hypothesis for this will be that more contemporary children's fiction uses less symbolism and imagery than previous incarnations that would somewhat protect the innocence of youth as we now have a more fragmented society. I'll accomplish my goal of writing this dissertation by dedicating at least one day a week to cop3 and continuing to read  informative texts. My practical will be something I'll need help or advice on as currently I only have the idea of creating a series of children's book characters.

New, new title

After my last tutorial I was a bit lost as Teresa said about how I needed more contemporary work in my dissertation and suggested the word conflict up. From there I've played around a bit and sort of settled on 'How the reality of conflict is presented in children's fiction and what affect it has'. However I'm mainly interested in how it is shown in fantasy as it has to be a little warped to live in the fantasy setting and isn't so obvious. I'm also really interested how we present difficult concepts to children.

Summary

How reality affects fiction, with a particular focus on Children's fiction in the Second World War.

At the start of the summer I had a different idea about what I was going to do for my essay and started my research based on that.

My question was about how growing up in a creative household affects the creative, with a particular focus on Tove Jansson’s Sculptors daughter. As the title suggests I stared my research by reading Sculptor’s daughter and making illustrations based of the book. The book itself is a part biography part fiction of her own childhood, viewed through the eyes and mindset of the child. I wasted a lot of my time by enjoying making images over starting to read a proper biography and when I did get round to reading one I began to change my mind on what I wanted to write about. After reading Tove Jansson Life, Art, words I wrote a big mess of a list about what it was that actually interested me and what it was that I wanted to write about. I realized that I was most interested in seeing how Tove’s life appeared in her works and about the subtle appearances of war in moominland compared to the not so subtle of C.S Lewis say.

Questions/Topics:

How the author’s/artists life appears in the story

How religion appears

How war is shown in a fantastical setting

How difficult/intangible concepts are presented to children

The differences between a subtle idea and an obvious one

Has this affected children?

How has children’s fiction been affected by war?

Books to read/Authors to look at:

Boys and Girls Forever – children’s tales from Cinderella to Harry Potter

World War II As Seen Through Children's Literature by 
Laura Pringleton (essay)

British Children's Fiction in the Second World War (Societies at War) by Owen Dudley Edwards – need to get my hands on a copy

Tolkein

C.S. Lewis

Judith Kerr

Tove Jansson

New topic Ideas

This is a list of what it is I'm actually interested in and where I could take it, I think I'm going with 'How reality affects fantasy, with a particular focus on world war 2 in children's fiction'. I've chosen this because it is the core of what I found most interesting while still having a historical focus that'll give me a direction to do my research and will have lots of academic sources.

Tove Jansson Life, Art, Words

In this summary I'm just going to focus on some of the notes I made on the family of Tove and her childhood as it's what most applies. Her parent's met at art school in 1910, her mother (Ham) had dreamed of becoming a sculptor but at the time it was very difficult for a woman. This didn't stop her from continuing on self taught, or going on to help set up the swedish girl guides movement, or becoming a suffragette. In the biography it states that she was part of the "new women of the day" and how she had articles writing about how she was a  modern career woman. However this didn't stop them in referring to her as wife of victor Jansson (Faffan) and later on mother of Tove Jansson, without ever getting to be referred to as simply herself. I think that she passed this refusal of being forced into societies rules of the norm down to Tove, Who continued to go her own way for as long as she lived. 

Faffan (as his family and friends called him) came from a family of industrialists, civil servants and teachers and rebelled away from that to become the first artist in his family despite the limited finances his family had. Ham had also broken away from the traditions of her family to pursue arts, she too came from a family with limited funds. This suggests to me that they both were very determined to become artists despite their family. This goes against the theory of having a creative family making a good impact as they both became successful artists on their own and later on Tove also rebelled away from both the traditional art schools (like Faffan did) and the way her parents viewed art. It gives the impression that if you are already creatively inclined having that encouraged helps but it doesn't make the artist. 

The household itself though seemed to have a massive impact as their home was their studio, something that Tove kept on after she moved out and throughout her life. It was in her childhood home that she learnt that work and love are one just like home and studio. This idea drove her life, the phrase work and love is a constant in her letters that she wrote almost continually and it speaks of the level of commitment she had for her work of all forms. Their home was semi famous and they were publicly thought of as an artist family, they had several articles written about them and their home. One of which  involved a reporter meeting he young Tove but she was told by Tove's parents not to tell her she was a journalist as they "Do not want to have undue influence on their 'wonder child'". This shows how my earlier theory just falls apart as while they did seem to want to encourage her to become an artist, they didn't want to force her or coerce her towards a path she didn't want to take. 

Another reason why my theory falls apart is because of how the biography refers to all three children turning to words as "a rebellion against the domination of pictures". However it also talks about how Faffan was a good writer as evidenced in his letters and how Hams family were particularly good storytellers. Something that fascinated the young Tove, She had a lot of love and respect for her uncles who would tell her great stories. It's entirely possible that writing was just innately within her. However  even if that's true, reading all of this rather deflated my idea and my desire to research it. I'll need to find something new to research.

Despite it ruining my idea I still think I can use a lot of what I have learned from this book and if not then I'm still glad I read it as it's powerfully motivational to do your work as work and love are one. Her attitudes to working were so inspiring I actually had a really hard time not drawing while I read and had to take a break to do some sketches of her every now and then. 

The Sculptor's daughter

I chose to read this first as it's part fiction I thought it'd be a easy way to build up to my research, it has a wonderful sense of what her childhood must have been like and how her family interacted. As well as how a young Tove thought, it's because of this that it is so valuable to read. I also found that it's beautiful imagery was begging to be drawn and I started some visual research. I think I'm going to use this for my practical side, to make at least one illustration for each story.

Cop3 proposal form

Evaluation

I think my largest failure with this module has been my time management and organisation. I have done most of the work for this when I’ve not had enough time left to achieve what I wanted. My lack of time has also meant that I’ve not really been able to explore any new options, I just had to finish whatever I already had. I’d say the largest reason that my organisation of this module has been so bad is because it is one like responsive that just keeps ticking away in the background with a reassuringly far away deadline. The length of this module leads to thoughts that say its okay you’ve not done it right now because the deadline isn’t for months and you’ve got a more pressing deadline to take up your time. This viewpoint has meant that I ended up continuing down a path that I don’t think has worked like I originally intended. While I do like the plan I made to draw a character in different locations in theory, I don’t believe it worked in practicality.  When I was actually sat in these locations trying to force myself to create characters it just didn’t work, there would be too much pressure to create something. Nearly all the characters I made like this were incredibly subpar and not something I would be proud to show someone.  I think to have got around this I would have had to be focusing on this module as the main module but as I had other modules to complete and commitments I couldn’t give this the amount of time it really needed. In the future I’m going to make sure I allocate my time appropriately, so that even If I cant give it the amount of time that would be the best, it would still have the same amount of time as my other modules get.
 I am pleased however with the characters I made in the hospital. They were born out of boredom and I think that may be the key to being creative or at least one of the methods, as it doesn’t always work. If you are bored, restless and comfortable you can create things out of nothing or the environment you’re in but if you are bored, cold and uncomfortable you’ll just get frustrated that you have to stay bored, cold and uncomfortable until you have made some characters.  The hospital was the break I needed to be able to do this module and it was somewhere that I went to without the intention of drawing.  As I created so many characters in there I changed my publication to have them all in the same room. I’m happy about this as I got to do a drawing that shows where they are as objects and where I got the idea for the characters from.  I do wish however that I had found more characters in that room as I would have liked at least another two to four characters in the publication.

Final publication

This is the final publication I made. I ended up darkening all of the image rather than just the shadow as I thought the print was coming out a lot paler then the version I had on the mac's in college, As I foolishly bound both the test and the final together the card is also too small for the pages. I would try to cut the pages down post bind but I don't trust myself to not mess up the whole book. I need to remember to do a test bind when I have time to actually make changes. However I am pleased with the bind as I was sure I'd make it too messily. 

Essay

How does environment affect the creative output?

In this essay I propose to look at how the surrounding world and the smaller more intimate spaces in a creative’s life can make an impact on their work with particular reference to the work of the Finnish-Swedish artist and author Tove Jansson.

Addressing the issue of work spaces, Christian Jarrett said “The spaces we occupy shape who we are and how we behave. This has serious consequences for our psychological well-being and creative performance. Given that many of us spend years working in the same room, or even at the same desk, it makes sense to organize and optimize that space in the most beneficial ways possible.” In his article he describes how it is possible to improve the existing work space and how using scientific principles can increase productivity and creativeness.

Whilst these findings may be useful, particularly in the office environment, it is debatable as to whether creativity can be increased as a direct response to improvements in the environmental surroundings. This scientific approach takes no account of the differences in the personality of the individual or how they respond to working with many others around them. I first read this article because I don’t work well in my University studio. I find it hard to think let alone have any creative ideas at all with thirty odd people surrounding me. There are people who are discussing their work, people sparking ideas off each other, people responding to the stimulus by  creating an incredible, vast, unending amount of work and at the other extreme is me  who can’t create a single  character I want to progress with. I am not alone many creative people are extremely sensitive to the influence of their surroundings and yet there are others who seem so entranced by their own internal creations that they can work in the most distracting of circumstances.

The poet Robert Frost said  “The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts the moment you get up in the morning and doesn’t stop until you get to the office” and this seems to be what happens to me when I go into the studio. While none of my issues with workspaces were addressed in the article I loved the opening quote and it led me to experiment with the impact of   different places on my work; a different place to shape what I was creating. I’ve since found a favorite place to generate  my creative concepts and I then use the studio to put these concepts to use. This creative space is a cliché in itself; a coffee shop named Mrs Athas.  It was here that while I was supposed to be making observational drawings of people I started creating characters, they were little creatures that would wear, hold, hide in various coffee shop related objects; I called them coffee gremlins (fig. one and two). It was then that it was brought to my attention that I would never have created these coffee based creatures elsewhere, even if I had made the same creatures and they had been coffee based they wouldn’t look the same, they wouldn’t wear the same teacups, they wouldn’t hide in the same old wooden coffee grinder. This was a completely subconscious response to the place I was in, the coffee gremlins were not created to show my love of coffee or where I like to draw, these creatures were directly born out the surrounding environment.

I am not making any attempt to claim this as a startling new insight, it is not a particularly new concept that environment is important. In the 1870’s this became a tenet of the group of artists that became known as the Impressionists from the satirical reaction of critics to Claude Monet’s painting Impression, Sunrise (fig. three). They believed that it was necessary to capture the essence of the moment by painting en plein air (in the open air) and using rapid brush strokes to create an impression of the scene in bright natural light, having scrutinized every aspect. Paul Cezanne said of Monet “Only an eye but my God what an eye!”  Thus to an Impressionist the importance of the scene was how the artist saw it on that day under those conditions of light and weather.  This rebelled against the then absolute norm of painting, creating and working in a studio. As the Impressionists mostly focused heavily on light and the effects it created, it was incredibly important to them to paint in the environment they hoped to capture. This allowed them to fully view the transient and momentary quality of the suns light on the scene they were painting. Moreover they believed that only by  painting en plein air, was it possible to  capture the essence of their subject, which is something that can so easily be lost in the transition from seeing to sketching to studio. The art critic, Camille Mauclair  said “Impressionism is an art which does not give much scope to intellectuality, an art whose followers admit scarcely anything but immediate vision, rejecting philosophy and symbols and occupying themselves only with the consideration of light, picturesqueness, keen and clever observation …” It has been claimed  that impressionism can be viewed as at least partly a reaction to the challenge brought to artists by the camera and the ability to simply, quickly and  more accurately capture a scene which could be done by anyone. This seemed to devalue the skill of the artist, however whether or not it was a reaction, by actually going out into the environment they wanted they were able to form their own perception of nature that would convey what they wanted rather than attempting to make an exact duplicate. Thus art became not just a representation of the landscape but a reflection of the artists interaction with the landscape at the particular time it was painted bringing an additional element of the artists personality to the work. This is the complete antithesis of the work of studio based painters such as Van Dyck who employed lesser artists as pupils to work on the background of pictures and reserved their input to important areas such as the face.

A precursor and important influence on the Impressionists was JMW Turner who has been regarded as a romantic preface to Impressionism. His work also focused on the role of light on a scene, particularly on the many ways it can be reflected and shine on a surface. This meant that like the Impressionists, he often painted in the environment he wanted to capture. He was known to be extremely interested in the effects of storms and fires. In 1843 he even rushed to see the burning of parliament which he then made into several watercolours. A more accurate example of his environment directly affecting his paintings is his work on the Thames (fig. four). He was known to rent a house on it and travel up and down by boat sketching and painting what he saw. The art critic Matthew Collins described Turner as   “ looking for things in the landscape which can stand for a feeling, a feeling that perhaps originates in him already, or in something divine. Rather than in the landscape, the landscape’s a kind of carrier for that.”  This implies that he used the landscape as a medium through which he could convey emotions and thus the environment, not just the lace but the light and weather conditions at the time of the painting were essential to Turner’s work

While these artists chose to go to a carefully picked location and their resultant work was a direct consequence  of that environment, on  others the environment they found themselves in created more subtle but still clearly discernible   influences. Tove  Janssons work reflects both the Scandinavian  landscapes she was raised in and the impact of the uncertain and unstable world she found herself in both during and immediately after the Second World War.

The most obvious example of Tove’s environment showing in her work is in the very world she created for her characters, the Moomins. For many an English child, their idea of Finland is defined by the land of the Moomins, the green valley that would get blanketed with snow every winter, forests and lakes, high mountains and unexplored coastlines with remote islands. Ironically  the soft green valley is generally agreed to be based on her grandfather’s summer home on the Swedish island of Blido in the Stockholm archipelago yet the wilder elements, the forests, the rocky mountains and above all the sea are clearly Finnish. Tove Jansson’s mother was the daughter of a Swedish Pastor and she grew up in middle class comfort where the family would spend the entire summer months outdoors in their summer home on Blido. Tove spent many summers here as a child before her mother started taking her and her brothers to spend summer on a remote island in the Pellinki archipelago. The sea becomes an important theme in her books representing both danger and freedom whilst the security of the Moomin Valley has an almost womb like feeling of warmth and safety.

All the time spent with her parents and brothers in the isolation of the island led to very close family bonds and this can be seen in the Moomin books where the warmth and love the characters feel for each other offsets the sometimes difficult and unpleasant situations the characters find themselves in which are sometimes startling in their apparent unsuitableness for a children’s book such as the story where Moominpapa driven by restlessness and depression forces his family to leave their home in Moominvalley and go to live in a lighthouse on a rocky island.

However environments beyond her control or choosing also featured in her books, paintings and in her work for a Finnish, Swedish language satirical magazine called Garm.  In Garm she showed her obvious displeasure with the war and the affect it was having on her country.  Working for Garm Tove Jansson started  a series of illustrations that reflected the plight of her country these are described by Elina Bonelius,  Finnish art historian and  curator of  the Moomin Valley exhibition at Tampere Art Museum  “There is the angel of peace, and here you can see the demolished earth with the ruins and airplanes bombing. The message is very, very clear, Tove Jansson was very ... upset about the war and  was feeling it very deeply. She wasn’t a political person at all but she sensed it more in a human way. She didn’t like the Germans, she didn’t like the Soviet union, she hated the war” (fig. five and six) The satirical illustrations she did for Garm during the war lampooning both Hitler and Stalin were very brave considering the position of Finland as a small country between Russia and Germany quite likely to be invaded by either country

In her renowned children’s series, the Moomins it is also possible to discern the impact of the war on her creative works. In the preface to her first children’s book, Moomin and the Great Flood, Tove  Jansson explains that the urge to create the Moomins was fired by the desire to escape the  war “It was the winter of war in 1939. One’s work stood still; it felt completely pointless to try and create pictures. Perhaps it was understandable that I suddenly felt an urge to write down something that was to begin with ‘Once upon a time.’”

And yet, though set in a Nordic fairy tale environment, the disruptions and dangers of war can  be seen  clearly as the main plot line follows the story of how Moomintroll and Moominmama are searching for the family they are separated from,  Moominpapa, and a new home for them to live. As the book progresses refugees can be seen fleeing the flood with what little possessions they still owned (fig. seven).  Another story ‘The Invisible Child’ describes a child who has been so traumatised by unspecified events that she has made herself invisible. It takes the warmth and calmness of the Moomins which ultimately give her the confidence to finally allow herself to be angry before she can take her visible place in the world again.

The war also seems to influence her second book, A Comet in Moominland, where the comet is an overhanging threat of destruction and devastation (fig. eight). The Moomins flee to a cave in the mountains and go to sleep unhappily thinking they are the only people left in a devastated world before waking up the next morning to discover that the comet has missed them by a whisker and the sun is shining and the valley is still green. This clearly echoes the impact of the cold war and the threat of nuclear weapons, a threat that was particularly real to those living in Finland which borders the Soviet Union.  

   

Another environmental factor that influenced Tove Jansson’s work was society’s attitudes to her sexuality as she was a lesbian in a time and place where it was illegal.  This can be seen in Finn Family Moomintroll where the creatures Thingummy and Bob are introduced, they have their own language that is just for themselves, and they carry a suitcase with a secret content. Later in the book it is revealed to be a large ruby with a brilliant glow, which a monster character called the Groke desires and pursues the two to steal it from them. It has been said that this represents the secret love that had to be hidden away from society, lest it be taken away from them (fig. nine).

Although many environments were placed upon her, she did choose one. Tove Jansson and her partner built a house for themselves on a remote isolated island where they could work through the summer and view the sea from all sides. The influence of these surroundings and the sea storms they witnessed featured heavily in her books and paintings.

  

However there are other creatives who found it possible to block out the war completely. Possibly the inner world they created was so strong that the environment they were in simply did not matter. Here is PG Wodehouse describing how he carried on writing his novel whilst in internment camp “I used to sit on my typewriter case with the machine balanced on a suitcase and work away with two German soldiers standing behind me with guns, breathing down the back of my neck. They seemed fascinated by this glimpse into the life literary” This was not simply an  effort of will called up to block out unpleasant circumstances, throughout his life wherever he was PG Wodehouse whether it was at home or on a cruise ship or on tour as writer of musical comedies or during bombing throughout the war, could work.  Similarly it is well known that Jane Austen wrote her novels at a table in the corner of the family sitting room, clearing her work away when visitors called.

PG Wodehouse and Jane Austen found it possible to mentally block out distractions and work whatever the environment, Marcel Proust by contrast literally blocked out distractions retreating to his bedroom which he had lined with cork to cut down on noise and keeping the shutters closed and heavy curtains drawn. Although it seems a very different reaction to the environment, the creative result was the same, a work that had been produced solely from the imagination and memories of the artist.

And so we seen artists who wish to engage directly with their environment in order to create, those whose work is  influenced by the environment they find themselves in and those whose creativity comes from within themselves and is not due to external factors, this latter group can then be sub divided into those who can ignore distractions around them and those who need to shut themselves away. There is yet another group of artists who deliberately try to create an environment around themselves which they can feed off and use to inspire their creativity. This is less about landscape as about people. An example of this type of creative would be Andy Warhol, whose studio, known as the Factory became a hangout for adult film performers, drag queens, socialites, drug addicts, musicians and free thinkers. There are similarities to the way Van Dyck operated his studio, three centuries earlier as Warhol used his coterie as workers producing the silk screen images for which he became famous but he also used this collection of people to create an atmosphere which he found conducive to creativity. Warhol did not restrict his creative output to visual arts being also  involved in film and music so as well as being an inspiration to him it could be said that these people were part of his creative output.

In conclusion when an artist creates he can try escape the environment he is in, either physically like Marcel Proust  or by retreating into the imagination like Tove Jansson and PG Wodehouse but it is impossible to escape the impact that the environment has already had in feeding our memories and imagination and personality. We value creativity as it is a physical embodiment of the differences in human beings. Whilst we may admire the skill with which a painting has been executed, skill only is not enough, it is the individual spark of creativity or originality or seeing the world differently which could only occur from that person in that situation that enables us to recognise what we call genius. It is not possible to create genius scientifically by systematically analysing the environments of successful creatives and then reproducing the most common features but it can be said that artists or writers of genius need to find the environment which best allows their creativity to flourish.

Bibliography

 (2011) PG Wodehouse: A Life in Letters, Hutchinson

Beckett, W. (2001) The Story of Painting, Dorling Kindersley

Jansson, T. (2012) The Moomins and the Great Flood Sort of Books

Jansson, T. (2003) Comet in Moominland Puffin; New Impression edition

Karjalainen, T. (2014) Tove Jansson Work and Love Particular Books

Kendall, R. (2000)  Monet by Himself  Little Brown

Lurie, A. (2003) Boys and Girls Forever, From Cinderella to Harry Potter Penguin Books

Mazarella, S and Westin, B. (2014)  Tove Jansson Life Art Words the  Authorised Biography  Sort of Books

Rogers, P. (1987) The Oxford Illustrated History of English Literature OUP Oxford

Image reference

Coffee gremlins (fig. one &two

Claude Monet, Impression, Sunrise (fig.three)

J.M.W Turner, The Thames Above Waterloo Bridge, (fig. four)

Tove Jansson, Anti-war illustrations for Garm, (fig. five and six)

Tove Jansson, Refugees, Momin and the Great Flood, (fig. seven)

Tove Jansson, Comet in Moominland, (fig. eight)

 

Tove Jansson, Thigumy and Bob with ruby, (fig. nine)