Brush of the Gods by Lenore Look (review)

This picture-book blend of fantasy and biography tells the legend of Tang Dynasty painter Wu Daozi. Creative from the start, he draws imaginative scenes when he's supposed to be dutifully copying the teacher during calligraphy class. After Wu hones his artistic skills, he finds he possesses a miraculous talent: what he paints looks so real that it actually becomes real, so his "birds fluttered away. His horses galloped into the mountains. Even his carriages rolled down the street and straight out of town." Finally the emperor directs him to paint an entire wall of the place in a great masterpiece; after years of labor, the artist presents his magnificent vision, a breathtaking landscape. To the astonishment of the crowd, he then paints himself a doorway, walks through it, and disappears into his own painting. Look breathes life into this legend, balancing the biographical trajectory with a bit of fancy in her subject's enticing abilities that waver between embodied metaphor and supernatural abilities. So's art, mixed media that runs from delicate pencil lines to soft, dappled watercolor, creates rhythm from the repeated figures and landscape elements, ramping up the energy as increasingly large crowds follow Daozi's art. While the scenes aren't quite as inviting as the textual hyperbole suggests, the contemporary, vividly colored, and informal style contrasts fascinatingly with the reveal of Daozi's final painting, an intricately drawn double-page spread landscape, tinted only with a gentle sky-blue wash, that echoes his surviving works. This would be a logical place to start for talking about (and Googling images of) early Chinese art, and it could also be a provocative partner to another title about illustrations coming alive, such as Collins' Doodleday (BCCB 6/11).