Attilio Mussino
Illustration for ‘Pinocchio’
circa 1911
Little parallels, let alone excels, the illustrations that Mussino created for Carlo Collodi’s timeless tale of Pinocchio. In comparison with works by others, whether by those from the past or by his contemporaries, Mussino’s drawings exude a character of form and expression yet unrivalled as visual vestiges into the world of Collodi’s wooden marionette. Through dark contours, the choice of only a few colours and, of course, his own lovely simplified style of illustration, Mussino enlivened the mischievous peg-and-timber character with an equivalent sense of ‘birth’ to an otherwise inanimate object as do the actual words written by Collodi himself. Other attempts by various artists into achieving this equal relationship between (a) story and (its) pictures only resulted (by popular opinion) in a rather deadened, lethargic look to Pinocchio - or rather a Pinocchio drawn with little appeal to the imaginative thirst nearly all children seek from such magical tales as this. Mussino drew with the intention to tell rather than to impress his viewers of who Pinocchio is. He avoided drawing additional background ‘noise’ (such as far-off trees, an indistinct butcher’s shop or perhaps a lone goose) or any extra flourishes to the important aspects of the narrative itself because, as any true illustrator can agree, he felt the greatest importance should be in giving the independent voices of the main characters as much room in which to speak for themselves - to communicate their own angle of their written world with as much visual clarity as possible. And by all means, in this particular scene one might easily interpret Pinocchio as saying, High-seated friend or foe, for what it’s worth, why not come down and play?
