#215 of 1001 · March 3, 2021

The book of the day is @claudeclementauteure and @fredericlement’s The Painter and the Wild Swans. In this original tale, a renowned Japanese artist named Teiji encounters a flock of migrating swans. Captivated by their movement and song, he develops an all-consuming desire to track them down and again experience their ethereal beauty and grace. When his quest is derailed by the harsh realities of nature, the painter achieves an epiphany that alters not only his perception but the very fabric of his being as well. The author and illustrator (unrelated, though they coincidentally share a surname) display a strong unity of vision and purpose. For her haunting text (translated from French by Robert Levine), Claude Clément drew inspiration from Swans, an art book by Japanese photographer Teiji Saga, after whom she named her protagonist, and to whom the story is dedicated. On delicately desaturated landscapes evoking traditional Japanese art, Frédéric Clément depicts lightly surreal transitions: a bird’s tail feathers become a sweeping brushstroke, a flock of swans becomes a hazy cloud bank, a mountain lake becomes a comforting cup of tea. Interspersed with the images are elegant lines of Japanese calligraphy, revealed at the end to be a poem told from a mysterious transhuman perspective. #painter #painting #wild #swans #art #japan #japanese #book #books #childrensbooks #beautifulbooks #picturebook #picturebooks #picturebookillustration #picturebookillustrations #picturebookart #childrensbookillustration #childrensliterature #illustration #kidlit #kidsbooks #bookworm #booklover #booklovers #bibliophile #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #bookstagrammers #instabook #instabooks