Appley Dapply's Nursery Rhymes - Illustrations

Illustrations

MacDonald believes the illustrations are some of Potter's best, but the book suffers from its small format and would be better suited to the larger format Potter originally intended. Much detail in the illustrations, MacDonald argues, is obscured with the reduction in book size.

M. Daphne Kutzer of the State University of New York at Plattsburgh argues in Beatrix Potter; Writing in Code that the charm of Appley Dapply's Nursery Rhymes lies in the illustrations rather than the text, and that the book (like other nursery rhyme collections) is not a sustained narrative but a series of short verses. Such collections are typically unified in style and design, but Appley Dapply lacks this unity because the illustrations range over a number of years in which Potter's style changed significantly.

The illustrations for the opening verse about Appley Dapply, for example, date from 1891 and reveal an artist with an original vision, technical mastery, and a near obsession with almost photographic realism, but the looser, more fluid illustration for the sixth rhyme about gravy and potatoes (recycled from The Tale of Pigling Bland of 1913) is less concerned with straight lines, microscopic detail, and photographic realism. The latter illustration displays Potter's development and maturity as an artist and the effect her failing eyesight had on her style.

Potter biographer Judy Taylor argues Appley Dapply is an uneven book and produces the impression of a compilation rather than a unified original work. The Appley Dapply rhyme at the opening of the book is illustrated with framed pictures and evidence suggests the material was intended for a small booklet of its own. Some illustrations are executed in a fluid manner while others are in the style of Potter's early dry-brush technique. The simple nursery rhymes Potter composed capture the rhythm of such verse, but none of the rhymes are especially memorable. Taylor describes the book as "the last squeezings of an almost dry sponge."