Big and Bad: Frames and Dynamic Composition in Lon Po Po
In Lon Po Po, a Chinese Little Red Riding Hood story by Ed Young, wolves might be smart, but little girls will always be smarter. Young tells the story with vivid personality and character, all in cleverly and intentionally framed illustrations that emphasize scale, viewpoint, and emotion.
The best example of this within Lon Po Po can be found in the moment when the wolf is convincing the three children to open the door. Young creates this moment in triptych over a two page spread. The verso page is split into two equal panels, while the recto page is a single framed illustration. The images all have very thin red frames, and the space between the frames is left white. These frames serve a multitude of purposes within this spread. The first is to suggest the physical barrier of the door between the children and the wolf. In the first illustration, the three girls look up at the door, surrounded by the deep shadows of a well shut-up house. On the other side of the frame from the children is the second of the smaller illustrations, which is taken up entirely by the gigantic face of the wolf. Another added impact that the framing of these two images have comes in the comparison of scale that the solid bordered, framed images makes so easy. On the one hand, three children share a framed illustration and have plenty of room to spare. On the other, the wolf is nearly bursting his frame, with only parts of his face visible. Just his face! This shift in scale and viewpoint is facilitated by the use of frames. Eye level, as Doonan tells us, “has a marked psychological effect upon how we relate to what we are looking at” (35). In relation to the children in the first illustration, the reader feels slightly above them as they huddle together against the door. In regards to the wolf, not only is the reader situated below them, but also much closer, making his sharp teeth and single yellow eye all the more terrifying in contrast with the children. That, in combination with the entire recto page being given over to the blue swirl of the wolf’s disguise covering its massive body, is terrifying.
Typically in picturebooks, frames are utilized to “create a sense of detachment between the picture and the reader” (Lambert 32). Framed art is said to lack the “dynamic, inviting presentation” (32) of full-bleed illustrations, and whileLon Po Po’s framed structure does do this, it has many more functions that serve to engage its readers and to create dynamic compositional styles that would be less possible without them.Lon Po Po’s tight frames and long, rectangular illustrations play with perspective, scale, and even give a nod to traditional Chinese handscroll art. (Met) The frames create a breath, a moment for the reader to collect themselves and continue, but they offer so much more than detachment.
Works Cited
Department of Asian Art. “Painting Formats in East Asian Art.” Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/pfor//hd_pfor.htm
Doonan, Jane. Looking at Pictures in Picture Books. Thimble Press, 1993.
Lambert, Megan Dowd. “Picturebooks and Page Layout.” The Routledge Companion to Picturebooks. Ed. Bettina Kummerling-Meibaurer. Routledge 2018
Young, Ed. Lon Po Po. Philomel, 1989.
Stats: CIP Fall 2022, Laramie Hearn. Installment #2: Design. 492 words.