| The purpose of this investigation is to examine the meaning making potential of the visual properties of the literary and artistic genre known as the picturebook. In addition, the means in which we come to understand the visual in picturebooks is challenged, particularly in regards to written text and in context within the conventions of the larger picturebook community. Through primarily a poststructural semiotic analysis of three major post-1960s picturebook works (plus an additional work produced by this author), this study demonstrates the deeper potentials of meaning in the visual elements of illustration and design qualities beyond current discourse. Lastly, this deeper potential meaning is qualified as to its impact on the picturebook field itself, as to the making, interpretation, and criticism of picturebooks, and to the utilization in education, especially the practise of visual art education. |
