#354 of 1001 · July 20, 2021

Look what I’ve got: another Beauty and the Beast adaptation, this one coming to you from Mordicai Gerstein. The art here is characterized by energetic black lines and a limited color palette, many of the pages bounded by sinuous decorative borders. Gerstein depicts Beauty, her father, and her older sisters (here named Edwina and Sybil) with detailed facial expressions and evocative poses and gestures. The Beast possesses a fascinating mix of animal features (the horns of a ram, the tusks of a boar, the beard of a goat, the tail of a monkey, the feet of an eagle) and he wears armor at all times (a cuirass on his torso, pauldrons on his shoulders, rerebraces on his upper arms, couters on his elbows, and vambraces on his forearms). In adapting the literary fairy tale, Gerstein employs the motif of birds to represent both Beauty’s and the Beast’s spiritual imprisonment, and the freedom they find in each other. #beauty #beast #palace #rose #mirror #book #books #childrensbooks #beautifulbook #beautifulbooks #beautifulbookcover #beautifulbookcovers #picturebook #picturebooks #picturebookillustration #picturebookart #childrensbookillustration #childrensliterature #illustration #kidlit #kidsbooks #bookworm #booklover #booklovers #bibliophile #bookstagram #bookstagrammer #bookstagrammers #instabook #instabooks