Research On The Creation Of Suekichi Akaba’s Children’s Picture Books

Picture book is the visual reading requisite for a person at children stage, as the bookaccompanying the lifetime of a person, its role is self-evident. Currently, children’s picturebooks that are best selling in market have great varieties, but most are “foreign picture books”introduced from overseas countries. Among native children’s picture books in China, only theworks of few famous painters are very popular. It is not only because that overseas children’spicture book industry is more mature, more importantly, the quality of overseas children’spicture books are superior. Therefore, on the premise of respecting objective conditions, thistopic sought the development road of Chinese native children’s picture books from theperspective of children’s picture book creation.At the early stage of research project, Japan as regional scope and Suekichi Aksba(children’s picture book creator with international specialized level and Japanesecharacteristics) as concrete research object were confirmed after collecting and analyzingliteratures related to this topic in various countries. At the mid-stage of research, by analyzingcreation source, creation style and creation thought of Suekichi Aksba, it understood thatalthough Suekichi Aksba integrated traditional art and cultural connotations of China andJapan, the works created by him has personal characteristics and unique Japanese flavorbasing on traditional art of two countries, its cause was understood. In addition, it combinedpersonal creation characteristics of Suekichi Aksba and the common points of children’spicture book creation of China and Japan, so as to seek three enlightenments of Chinesenative children’s picture book creation: insisting on profound recognition to ethnic culture,insisting on the original intention of children’s picture book creation, and insisting on respectto public aesthetic requirements. At the post-stage of research, practice research was addedbasing on theoretical research. Taking illustration design course of teacher Hu Xinyi fromSchool of Design of Jiangnan University as practice platform, picture book creation ofstudents in course learning was guided with the conclusion obtained from this project research;and several relatively excellent student works were produced, such as Flying over Autumn,Thud is Coming, Blue, and After the Rain. These children’s picture books obtained lots ofreferences from the works of Suekichi Aksba, it is one exploration returning to self practicefrom others’practice via applying theory into practice.This research project obtained several enlightenments from excellent picture bookcreation of others in overseas countries. It is not only for developing broader space forcreation field of Chinese native children’s picture book, but also for enabling Chinese children to better understand native traditional culture taking children’s picture book as carrier.