Works
His books often depict fantastic, uncontrolled events and utilize sometimes brutal irony. Van Allsburg breaks out of the comfortable world of children literature to explore the darker side of human nature. For example, his book The Sweetest Fig is about a selfish man who is suddenly given the opportunity to make his wildest dreams come true. His greed is eventually his downfall. This is not an unusual moral for a story in children books, but Van Allsburg's chilling characterization of the man brings a frightening tone to the narrative. The Mysteries of Harris Burdick, a collection of images on one side, and one sentence on the other (meant to be 'recovered pages' of longer books) continues the themes of darker undertones and was the inspiration for the short story "The House on Maple Street" by author Stephen King, in his collection Nightmares & Dreamscapes (as his author's note expands upon). The Wretched Stone, in which a ship's crew is mesmerized and corrupted by the titular rock, is an allegorical tale about the negative impact of television.
Other literary themes include dreams, the environment, and items with lives of their own (like the board games in Jumanji and Zathura, two books which are almost the same story, with the only difference being the theme of the board game and the events which are caused by playing).
Many books feature Fritz, a bull terrier that is based on a real-life dog owned by Chris Van Allsburg's brother-in-law. He appears in many of the books and even on his website, sometimes as a real dog, or a toy, or other things as a tribute to the dog's life.
Van Allsburg's drawings are particularly notable for their use of perspective. In many cases the illustrations are drawn from a child's eye height. This viewpoint likely appeals to children because it conveys the world as they see it. It may also appeal to adults because they may (unconsciously) perceive the world as they did when they were children.
Chris Van Allsburg lives in Providence, Rhode Island with Lisa Van Allsburg, his wife of 30 years. They have two daughters, Sophia and Anna. Van Allsburg converted to Judaism, his spouse's faith.
Read more about this topic: Chris Van Allsburg
Famous quotes containing the word works:
“The appetite of workers works for them; their hunger urges them on.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Proverbs 16:26.
“Only the more uncompromising of the mystics still seek for knowledge in a silent land of absolute intuition, where the intellect finally lays down its conceptual tools, and rests from its pragmatic labors, while its works do not follow it, but are simply forgotten, and are as if they never had been.”
—Josiah Royce (1855–1916)
“We do not fear censorship for we have no wish to offend with improprieties or obscenities, but we do demand, as a right, the liberty to show the dark side of wrong, that we may illuminate the bright side of virtue—the same liberty that is conceded to the art of the written word, that art to which we owe the Bible and the works of Shakespeare.”
—D.W. (David Wark)