Animalarium

Friday, August 9, 2013

Joyous Carousel

How ant hurried home, 1967

I discovered the illustrations of Lev Tokmakov a few years ago,
thanks (unsurprisingly) to 50 Watts, and was recently very pleased to stumble
upon a large treasury of his children's books on a Russian website.

What looks like the Moon, 1961

Tokmakov was a Russian artist born in 1928 who produced lithographs and paintings

and illustrated almost 300 children's books. His bright, cheerful, witty and graceful illustrations
graced the pages of books by most of the important authors of Russian children's literature,

as well as Gianni Rodari and Astrid Lindgren. He also worked on a large number of Russian folk tales,
and other tales from Italy and China.

Boris Zakhoder, School for Baby Birds, poems for children, 1970

Tokmakov taught for many years illustration at the Russian State Children's Library.
He believed that it's harder to illustrate children's books than books for adults,
"because you have to use more life force energy". In 1958 he began to collaborate
with the famous children's magazine Murzilka, and became one of its best artists.

Irina Tokmakova, Carousel, poems for children, 1971

Moldavian folk songs, 1987

About furry and feathered, 1989

In his later books, sometimes Tokmakov revisited his subjects using a different technique,
as you can see from the turtle below. In 2010, the same year he died, he was awarded a special diploma
for outstanding achievement for his book Amusing walks across Moscow at the Moscow book festival.
His works are in the collections of numerous museums, including the State Tretyakov Gallery,
the Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts and the National Gallery of Bratislava.

As always, I invite my dear Russian readers to correct

any terribly translated title you find in this post!

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

A Matter of Life and Death

Dear readers, if you're still hanging around, I'd like to inform you that as today I resume
my Animalarium postings. I feel I owe you an explanation for my long absence, so here it is: I was at a loss for words.

At the end end June Seba and I were in Sweden, having a wonderful time at the wedding

of our lovely friends Ingrid and Lorenza, when we received a phone call from one of our daughters

informing us that or beloved little Chapi had suddenly died. Unseen, mysteriously, just outside our home,

hit on the head by a big log of wood. The log may have fallen due to that day's small earthquake,

or maybe Maya pushed it down as they were playing... but these speculations are rather useless,

and we were simply left to face and accept the hard fact that we had lost our wonderful friend,

as it had happened just one year before with Emma.

our last photo together

Since I really haven't slowed down, with Summer courses, family events and even a great dancing party

in our garden, but I have often been feeling quite sad and empty inside, and couldn't face the idea
of writing a blog post, as I wasn't ready to talk about what had happened or to ignore it.

And I really didn't feel at all like posting pretty pictures of animals, especially cats,

although I did make an effort to keep the Animalarium facebook page alive.

Maya has been sad too. Chapi had been her best friend and companion since she arrived at our home,

the two of them playing together for hours to our endless delight. We began to think that
we should adopt another cat, hoping that magic would happen again and the big rumpus

could resume. But we weren't quite ready.

Then, about ten days ago, a young female cat appeared in our garden. She was very hungry

and scared, and we started feeding her and making friends. One of her eyes was

in bad shape, but otherwise she looked healthy, with a very sweet temperament.

I noticed that the time spent with this kitty was the most peaceful and serene in my day.

I was hoping that she would hang around, and she did. She still spends most of the time

out in the garden, but is starting to feel more confident and to come eating inside.

Then, about a week ago, another female cat appeared out of the blue. This was pretty weird,

since during the sixteen years that I've been living here no cats had ever showed up at our door.

This one was very hungry too, but much less frightened – in a very short time, she has installed

herself in our home and looks perfectly at ease lying on the sofa. In all likeliness
she belonged to someone, and she is either lost or abandoned. We are still looking for

the owner, but it's quite likely that both of these cats will end up moving in with us.