Иван Ганчев е роден в гр. Велико Търново през 1925 г. За родното си място и атмосферата на младежките си години, говори с пиетет. „Започна ли да го рисувам, образите сами изплуват. Търново е много живописен град, още като ученик правих изложба с изгледи от града”. Смята, че цялото му изкуство е свързано с българските му спомени и носи очарованието на онова спокойствие и хармония, с които помни Търново... В някои от произведенията си набляга на спомените за българската природа, за флората и фауната от Балканите, а също така, понеже част от литературните текстове над които работи са негови, имената на героите са български.
В събитията на 9-ти септември 1944 г., баща му, известен търновски адвокат, изчезва безследно. Майка му до края на своя живот остава с надеждата, че съпругът ѝ не е бил убит, а е отведен някъде из лагерите в Сибир. „Майка ми си отиде с такава надежда във възкресението.” „Баща ми беше адвокат. Не се е занимавал с нищо, което да навреди някому. Той беше арестуван с още 16 граждани от Търново, след това научихме, че имало някаква тайнствена заповед от Москва да се ликвидират във всички градове на България интелектуалците. С баща ми беше един ветеринарен лекар, един друг лекар, още един адвокат, вече не си спомням имената на всички, които бяха ликвидирани... Но дълго време след това се носеше мълвата, че те вероятно са отвлечени в Русия и някой ден ще се завърнат. Не искахме да повярваме, че са убити. И майка ми, до края на печалния си живот, все очакваше баща ми да се завърне отнякъде. Тя остана в България, когато аз заминах и на следната година почина. Но аз не съм единствен в България с подобна съдба. Има обаче нещо друго, което много ме смущава и то е, че тези другарки и другарчета напуснаха сцената съвсем безшумно и забравиха да угасят светлината.” Следва в Художествената академия, София, специалност „Живопис”. По приведена от ЦК на БКП инициатива за проверка на учещите висше образование, в изпълнение от ректора проф. Дечко Узунов през 1949 г., се започва чистка на студенти с неблагонадеждни характеристики. На академичен съвет името на Ганчев е внесено за изключване. „Комичното беше – спомня си художника - , че в президиума на ДСНМ (Демократичен съюз на народната младеж) стояха Лиляна Фъртунова и Димитър Остоич, който преди беше бранник. И когато ми дадоха последната дума, аз попитах: „Извинете от кого съм изключен сега, от бившите бранници или от комсомолската организация?” Всъщност след смъртта на Георги Димитров и събитията за отстраняване на художника Александър Жендов от художествения живот на страната, започва сталинизацията на културата ни. Една от първите крачки в тази насока е постановлението на ЦК на БКП за Академията, в което се взема решение за съветски модел в нашето творческо образование, свързан с теорията и практиката на ленинизма и сталинизма. Правят се чистки на младежи с воля за свободен творчески живот. Три седмици по-късно от изключването му, Иван Ганчев го вземат във войските с трудова повинност. Работи тежък физически труд, без заплащане, често с огромен риск за живота. Когато се уволнява от там, започва да си търси работа, по възможност на художник. Работи плакати, нагледна агитация, оформя витрини... Особено му помага Борис Ангелушев, един от основателите на съвременната българска илюстрация. В своята памет, сред българските художници, които имат заслуга както за запазването на неговото призвание към изкуството, но и са били ценни с таланта си за самата България, Ганчев изпитва особен пиетет към Борис Ангелушев. По-възрастният художник е прекарал част от живота си в Германия, познава европейската и американска култури и особено добре книгоиздателската практика. Има дистанцирано отношение към проявите на лицемерие в българското общество към свободата в изкуството и толерирането на бездарници. Чрез делото си, Борис Ангелушев издига българската книга на величина, достойна за времето и убеждава редица поколения да следват този му път. „Аз нямах абсолютно никакво жилище, живеех по мазета и по тавани и всяка седмица отивах в приемния час на тогавашния кмет на София, Димитър Попов се казваше, така наречения Попето, за да го моля за жилище. Тогава беше невъзможно да си купиш жилище. След половин година той ми каза: „Обадете се в трети Районен народен съвет, там жилищният инспектор е уведомен и ще ви даде жилище”. Отидох да посетя този човек, а той ме пита: „Какво жилище искате от нас? Вие сте народен враг, класов враг. Не знаете ли кой е баща ви? Няма да получите никакво жилище.” Аз му отвърнах, че ще отида при председателя на Народния съвет, пък той ме посъветва да не го правя, защото председателят бил бивш майор от Държавна сигурност. Обаче аз реших, че имам право, отидох и влязох в стаята на другаря Георги Москов, председател на Трети районен съвет в София. Разказах му всичко, включително и това, че моят баща след 9-ти беше невинно разстрелян и дори не знаем къде е гробът му. Москов ми поиска доказателство за това, но аз му казах: „Държите целия апарат на Държавна сигурност в ръцете си, докажете вие, че баща ми е виновен!” След една седмица получих писмо от този другар Москов, в което пишеше: „За съжаление, установихме, че баща ви е изчезнал безследно по времето на революционната вихрушка.” Що за фразеология! Във всеки случай по жилищните въпроси ме препратиха към друга другарка и в крайна сметка получих едно ателие на „Стамболийски” 186. Та по този начин вече имаше къде да живея. Георги Москов обаче се заинтригува от моята съдба и се сближи с мен. Когато стана дума, че ще се женя за западногерманка, той ми каза: „Виж какво, Иване, ако се ожениш, аз ще ти стана кум!” И ни стана. Аз си обяснявам това му отношение с факта, че той сигурно е бил вярващ комунист, който постепенно се е разочаровал.”
Сключва брак с западногерманка и напуска България. Много скоро след като за него започва нов етап в биографията му, го определят по следния начин: През 1966 г. той емигрира в Германия. Неговите наградени творби са показани в галерии по целия свят. Няколко от неговите книги са публикувани от издателски вериги в цял свят. Той се определя за илюстратор на книжки с картинки, защото той иска да покаже децата, че е възможно те да се научат да решават проблемите си мирно и забавно! Започва работа като детски илюстратор и скоро някои от книгите му имат световни премиери. Същевременно работи в един вестник в провинция Райнланд-Пфалц. Рисува в цвят, предимно с акварел на техника. „Някои казват, че да постигнете добра акварелна звучност, трябва да работите до колене във вода. Винаги нанасям боите на влажна хартия, като следя очарованието на цветовата игра между мокрото и сухото, разливащите и преливащи се багри.” Когато журналисти питат един от световноизвестните илюстратори на детска литература, Майкъл Ембърли, кои са любимите му учители и колеги, той отговаря: „Като за всеки един от нас, подобни неща се променят с времето. Но аз се възхищавам на работата или трябва да призная, че съм бил повлиян от Уилям Стейг, Ричард Скъри, Джим Маршал, Уоли Трип, Пеги Ратхман, Холинг Кленси Холинг, Марк Симон, Ръсел Хобан, Джовани, Иван Ганчев, Лизбет Зоургър, д-р Сус, Ърнест Шепърд , Мьобиус, Джордж Ботх, Лари Гоник, Тери Мур, Семпе, Робърт Озбърн, Жул Пфайфър, и разбира се, баща ми, Ед Ембърли.” Подобна класация, измежду най-основните представители на направления в различните родове илюстрация, гениални рисувачи, само посочва нивото на майсторство и новаторство, с което Ганчев се характеризира от елита на световното книгоиздаване. Понеже българският читател не познава редица от горните имена, ще посочим например, че Семпе е най-популярния френски карикатурист в света в последния половин век насам... Сред най добрите му постижения са книжките „Коледния влак”и „Предпочитани истории с Дядо Коледа от Нисако Аоки, публикувана през 1990 г., но включена в списъка на най-четените детски книги през 1997 г. В нея се съчетават историята на Дядо Коледа и Рождество Христово. Дядо Коледа решава да не излиза вечерта на Бъдни вечер, но това поражда паника сред горските животни. Дядо Коледа настоява, че и без него Коледа ще има във всеки кът на света.... И той събира животните и им разказва истинската същност на Коледа, свързана с християнския празник и неговата действителна символика... Западноевропейската критика говори често за влиянието, което акварелната техника на Ганчев поставя като ефект в книгоиздаването и много голямото влияние, което оказва на много творци, негови последователи. Други книги, илюстрирани от Иван Ганчев са „Снежни леопарди” от Никол Попенхагер, „Заека и мечката” от Алисън Джеймс, „Три зайчета” (балканска народна приказка) от Алиъсн Джеймс, „Когато Луната заживява” от Андрю Клеменс, „Добро утро, лека нощ” на Андрю Клеменс, „Тримата крале” от Курт Бауман, „Бабиният влак” от Иван Ганчев, „Пътуване сред щъркели” от Иван Ганчев, „Разходка под дъгата” от Паула Франклин, „Ото мечката” от Иван Ганчев... Макар и детски, книгите с участието на Ганчев, са предизвиквали проблеми или насочват младия читател към запознаване с проблемите на света, природата и екологията. „Снежните леопарди” фиксира нуждата от опазване на застрашените животински видове. Поучителна е и историята от преразказаната българска народна приказка „Трите зайчета”: бащата заек изпраща своите три рожби да опознаят света. Той ги предупреждава преди всичко, да копаят по една дупка всеки път и когато после играят или учат, те ще имат скривалище от хитрите лисици. Само малката сестричка си взема поука от тези съвети... Някои от текстовете са свързани с религиозната нравственост на западноевропееца, с неговите празници и вяра, с традициите н вярата. Сред издателствата, с които е работил са North-South Books (New York, London). Илюстрациите на Ганчев са печелили много награди, включително и Златен медал на Биеналето в Братислава, носител е на Австрийската държавна награда и Наградата за илюстрация на град Виена. Произведенията му са разпръснати по света: Токио, Франкфурт, Цюрих, Бостън и други градове или държави, където го определят "майстор на цветове, нюанси и баланс.", или „илюстрациите на Иван Ганчев са много повече от онова, което се вижда в тях. Защото нарисуваното така се слива с мечтата, че видимото също е така дълбоко, художествено, приятно, че зрителят възприема красотата като част от своите надежди.” „Неговото голямо умение – твърди критиката – му донесе световна слава и признание”. В чест на изкуството му, 26-тото издание на фестивала на детската илюстрация в италианския град Сармене, през 2008 г., е съпроводена от голяма изложба творби на родения в България художник. Като значимо се определя например и участието му в експозицията на майсторите на книгооформлението и илюстрацията в Португалия, Барейро: „Повечето издатели или „архитекти” на книгата, тоест писателите, художниците, участниците в направата, имат своите "книги на въображението", имат въображаеми книги, които сънуват. Те познават какво е да имаш книги-сънища и да се стремиш те да станат действителни. Изхождаща от тази идея, Барбара Шериот, бивш директор на Международната младежка библиотека в Мюнхен, е подбрала 72 илюстратори от 30 страни, за да създаде експозицията от една измислена книга, в която те да се представят. Между поканените са най-добрите световни майстори в илюстрацията Клаус Енсикат, Иван Ганчев, Душан Калай, Квета Пацовска, Джон Роу, Бинет Шрьодер... Всички те са участвали с голям ентусиазъм и са довели до съвършенство реализацията на проекта. Сред хората, с които е работил над проектните си книги, е и писателката Игна Ганчева, дъщеря на художника. Стилът на Ганчев се отличава с много широка артистичност, той не се спира на ненужни детайли, а стилизира много смело и съвременно. Показва забавното в природата, винаги окъпано в светлина, умее да пресъздава природните състояния и с лаконични изразни средства да внушава характеристиките на нарисуваното. Източник- http://www.artprice.bg
Чаровният град Велико Търново
Иван Ганчев, Германия
Търново е моят роден град. Чаровният град Велико Търново.
Пенчо Славейков пише в едно писмо до проф. Александър Балабанов: „Търново е фотографиран блян на дядо Господ.”.
Родната ми къща не е далеч от началото на ул. „Гурко” – близо до крепостта Царевец. Първите ми детски спомени бяха от „Света гора” – хълмът срещу нашата къща и блестящата в подножието му р. Янтра.
Янтра – разярено шумяща след проливен дъжд, а в слънчеви дни – тиха и романтична. Хълмът „Света гора” беше пълен с птици и при бавно настъпващата вечер птичият концерт беше незабравим. Живописният чар на този град привличаше десетки художници. И улица „Гурко” беше пълна с рисуващи гости. Аз също рисувах почти всеки следобед моят град, най-вече на брега на Янтра, недалеч от железопътните мостове и двата тунела. Тук градът се оглеждаше в тихата река с чудни пастелни тонове.
Когато започна войната, вече не беше възможно да се рисуват романтични изгледи. Мостовете бяха военна тайна.
След войната дойде „светлата дата” 9 септември. Тогава вече абсолютно всичко стана „военна тайна”. Шпиони, диверсанти и капиталистически агенти се търсеха зад всяко ъгълче и под всяко камъче. Някакви небръснати личности със свирепи погледи ревяха на безконечните митинги: „Смърт! Смърт! Смърт!”
Чаровният град Велико Търново изгуби чара си.
В края на септември арестуваха 16 граждани на Велико Търново – включително и моят баща. В началото на октомври ги избиха незнайно къде.
В читалище „Надежда”, символ на българската независимост заседаваше „народният” съд и даряваше новоизлюпената република почти всекидневно с нови смъртни присъди.
Аз престанах да рисувам Търново.
Картини без партизани, заводи и ТКЗС-та вече бяха продукт на империалистическо декадентство. Социалистическият реализъм изтри ликът на България и на Търново от плана на новата живопис.
Аз успях да напусна тази шизофренна сцена на доносници и програмирани фигури на сервилност и идеологически фанатизъм. Много време измина, откакто за последен път видях В. Търново.
Не знам дали този чаровен град отново има своят чар?
Но кой беше казал, че лошата слава умира последна?
Предлагам
ви илюстрации от албума "THE ART OF IVAN GANTSCHEV", който успях да си
закупя. Търново, като роден град на художника, заема основно място в
неговите творби.
IVAN GANTSCHEV -
The Watercolourist
Barbara Scharioth
His first love is the water-colour, true water-colour painting with brush and water, that is - not mere water-coloured drawings. The technique of true water-colour permits "spontaneous painting”, which takes its life from the “controlled chance".
Ivan Gantschev is the most successful water-colourist among picture book artists and tries in this way to describe his picture book technique. Of course, he does not view his painting technique as a theoretical problem. The water-colour simply belongs to him, has become a part of his life. When you look at the best picture books published in Germany over the past fifteen years, you come across time and again Ivan Gantschev’s books, among them so successful titles such as Ota The Bear (1977, published in ten countries so far), The Moonlake (1981), Santa's Favorite Story (1982), or The Journey Of The Storks (1983). In 1985 he was awarded the prize of the International Jury of the BIB, the Biennial of Illustrators in Bratislava, the most famous illustrators’ exhibition in the world.
Only a few German artists have received this award. From the titles alone you can recognize a second characteristic of Ivan Gantschev’s picture books. Most of them - and in my opinion, the best of his picture books - are dedicated to nature. From his flat on the fourth floor in the West end of Frankfurt, where he can see a lot of the sky but only scarce patches of green, the painter has dreamt and imagined extensive landscapes with sleepy villages, dense woods, clear lakes, murmuring streams, and wonderful mountain vistas - often in the change of the seasons.
His feeling for nature is heightened by this wish for harmony, by his notion of the unity of plants and animals under an all-outstretching sky. He translates this visually into scenery that is expansive, but which conveys at the same time a sense of home and security.
Most of the texts of his books have been written by himself and reflect nature themes in different ways, but they always end with a happy resolution. The gentle tone of these picture books, the warmth they radiate, their unspectacular, simple stories with clear messages - these qualities have earned Gantschev’s picture books a secure place in the playrooms and nurseries of our children.
But by no means has it been this way from the beginning.
At first, no German publisher wanted to print his picture books and that is why they were published first in Japan. Some of the books published there still do not exist in a German edition. It started with Mousemax Flies Around The World (1973) and The Story Of The Pear Tree (1974, both by RSW, Esslingen). These books resulted from conversations at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 1972 with the big Japanese publisher Gakken. At that time, the Japanese were eager to publish Gantschev’s pictures. They bought the rights, but they paid only a ridiculously small flat fee. They printed and sold an edition of 120,000 to 130,000 copies, and Gantschev received no royalty on these sales.
But the excellent response of the Japanese encouraged Gantschev to continue painting picture books. In 1975, the book Siri And The Tiger was published in Japan, and for the first time Gantschev wrote the story himself. One year later, this picture book was published by Peters Verlag, Hanau. Germany. Since then about 30 of his picture books have been published first in the German language, most of them by Neugebauer Verlag, Salzburg.
But anyone who wants to know more about Gantschev and his picture books will have to visit him. Reserved, almost shy, he speaks from deep within himself, disclosing private thoughts and feelings with reluctance. Nevertheless, here are some facts.
He was born in 1925 in Tirnovo, Bulgaria, and studied painting and graphics at the Academy of Art in Sofia. Due to the political riots and the first Bulgarian purge in 1949, he had to leave the Academy and was called up to the army. In the time after Stalin, more relaxed political circumstances gave him more possibilities for artistic work. He developed book covers, created drawings for public relations, designed posters for theatre plays and films, and took part in projects of the government’s “art at the construction”. But again and again he had to justify himself, because “under totalitarian regimes many feel bound to give signals”.
Those years have left a mark, for even today, after living in Germany so long and being a German citizen for ten years, Gantschev speaks and expresses himself very cautiously.
Tired of the constant effort to keep the political surveillance at bay, he looked for an escape abroad. He met a German woman at the Black Sea coast, and after their marriage, he finally applied for a passport. He visited Germany in 1966, and never returned. His father, an innocent murder victim under the old regime in Bulgaria, was eventually “rehabilitated", but still Gantschev has not been back to his homeland. From then to now Ivan Gantschev has been living in Germany. He earned a living first working for a big newspaper, the RHEINPFALZ. designing posters, advertisements, and layouts. Later on he moved to Frankfurt and worked for a multi-national public relations agency until 1988. Since then he has been a free-lance artist.
For Ivan Gantschev, being an artist means being a picture book artist, because the picture book is his very own domain, with lands and peoples, scenes and settings, laws and justice under his own control. His pictures and stories have grown from the rich context of his own experiences and his own dreams of a better world.
He finds great individual freedom with in the somewhat narrow limits of a narrative structure.
Many drawings and water-colours in his sketchbooks have gone on to become the basis for books, for always Gantschev paints stories. It is the course of events, the development of a story, the before and after, that he loves. He is not challenged by the creation of a single picture, but rather finds his satisfaction in a sequence of pictures that tell a story.
Perhaps this approach was shaped by the many storyboards for commercials he did in the public relation agency where he also sketched the transposition for the film camera later on in the process. Although he speaks almost brusquely about his work in the PR agency when he says, “Advertising is strategy and not art " - still, his patient arranging, and the simplifying and leaving-out which characterize his picture book paintings, seem to be an influence resulting from his former job. This training as a visual communicator can be seen most clearly in the unobtrusive - yet purposeful -visual highlights which catch one’s eye consciously only on careful examination of his work. One colour dot that clashes with the colours dominating a picture; a bit of orange in a predominantly green-blue context; a seemingly random touch of red in a grey-white snow landscape: all these are scarcely noticed but. nevertheless, have a definite impact on the atmosphere. the radiance of the pictures. With these observations I have come back to the water-colour technique that Gantschev has been developing since he began painting as a child. First of all: water-colours consist of pigments in a water-soluble binding agent. Transparency is the essence of all but the purposefully opaque watercolours, and the painting ground shines through more or less, depending on how intensely the colour is applied. Since their earliest appearance, watercolours have been used to colour pencil drawings. Only in England at the end of the 18, and the beginning of the 19’ century did the water-colour technique develop into an independent painting method - think of William Turner or John Constable. In modern picture books you very often find this coloured-drawing style of water-colour. From Lisbeth Zwerger to Helme Heine, from F.K. Waechter to Inge Steineke, they all use more or less distinctly the stroke of the pencil, the brush or the pen, to define the boundaries of forms. These artists also develop some of the characteristics of their specific styles from the dual nature of applied water-colours and outlined or hatched drawings, benefitting from the differences between these combined media. Gantschev works completely differently. He also draws the configuration of the picture as well as its subjects and the outlines of the landscapes, but his line stroke seems to be invisible. Carefully, he traces the lines to the painting ground, so that they remain shadowy and soft. When applying the colour, he tries to confine the colour areas with different degrees of moisture. On dry paper there are “hard" boundaries between colours, while on wetter paper the colours blend more.
These techniques are Gantschev’s specialty. They show his secure feeling for colours, his knowledge of the reactions of the different pigments.
By dabbing, wiping, rubbing, and fast drying (with a hair-dryer) he influences the effect of the colours. With ox-bile, an organic substance, he takes the colour pigments off the paper and achieves in that manner speckles or patterns within the colour areas. As early as 1977 he had already mastered this diversified technique, as can be seen in Ota, der Bar (Ota The Bear, 1977). His absolute command of it is shown distinctly in the big double page pictures of his book Wo ich gehoren bin (Where I Was Born, 1978) with poems by Silvius. It is not a picture book for children, but is rather a bibliophile book that will inspire adults to reflect upon and dream about the beautiful, atmospheric impressions of nature.
Gantschev’s composition, his conception of the picture area, catches one's eye. It is simply area, nothing else. It is two-dimensional, limited by the picture format, yet often going across the bounds of the pictures. There is seldom depth in his pictures. Landscapes, trees and mountains, houses, squares, and people are arranged either on a small “stage" or more often one above the other. His views of villages and towns are "mountains of houses" consisting of piled-up areas. Especially impressive is his view of the nocturnal Bethlehem in the book The Christmas Story by Father Christmas, also published as Santa's Favorite Story (1982). This picture can be compared to one of the water-colours of Tunis by August Macke, painted during two weeks in 1914.
Macke’s "Kairouan 1" in the State Gallery of Modern Art in Munich shows his arrangement of the areas, the purposeful wet-in-wet technique in an impressive interplay with dry. hard bounds and limited colour areas. Macke tried to break up the areas in these water-colours, to dissolve the objects in the picture in their clear form without endangering the tectonics of the composition. Gantschev applies a different method. Starting with the format of the picture, he works with the balance of the picture’s elements. Even in pictures implying a profound spaciousness such as in Der Weihnachtszug (The Christmas Train, 1982), the area of the picture is not broken up optically.
But still, Gantschev finds a characteristic dynamic for the sequencing of his pictures. His means of tension and motion is the frequent change in the point of view. In The Journey Of the Storks (1983) one gets the impression of flying over landscapes and towns, rivers and seas, like Nils Holgersson on the back of a bird. In The Moonlake (1981) the onlooker is near one moment, then far away. In Der Weihnachtszug (The Christinas Train, 1982) - a story which goes back to Gantschev’s family history and is therefore dedicated to his mother - you watch first from a distance, and then more and more through the eyes of the child who wants to warn the train that thunders ever nearer of the rock that lias fallen onto the rails. Finally, the viewer is again outside of the story, and in the last picture he bids farewell to the lonely linesman's house in the snow-covered mountain scenery.
The degree to which Gantschev is a water-colourist shows in his usage of acrylic colours. In Where Is Mr. Mole? (1989), a story he wrote about a venturesome mole, Gantschev works with opaque acrylic colours as if they were pigments of water-colours. To bring acrylic colours to life - according to Gantschev - requires many overpaintings, many layered glazes. A painting done with acrylic colours has to be "conducted”, whereas a watercolour is like a horse-cart on its way home: if the coachman falls asleep, the horses find their way alone. The luminosity of these acrylic pictures is impressive. However, the brightness of a beach motif, painted a little later with water-colours, or the silvery shine of the nocturnal lake scenery in Good Morning, Good Night (1991) -a picture book about the rivalry and friendship between the sun and the moon - is unique. This quiet book, with very little action and a spare text written by Gantschev, shows perfectly his mastery of water-colours. It seems as if he paints his pictures with effortless ease. His recently published book, The Christmas Teddy Dear, gives the same feeling. Often, one gets the impression that in his water-colours and the accompanying stories, the painter is looking for the harmony he has lost in reality.
Copyright ©1993 by Ivan Gantschev and Michael Neugebauer Verlag AG, Gossau-Ztirich, Switzerland Published in German by Michael Neugebauer Verlag AG, Gossau-Ziirich/Frankfurt/Salzburg
First published in English in 1994 by North-South Books, an imprint of Nord-Siid Verlag AG, Gossau-Ztirich, Switzerland. Distributed in the United States by North-South Books Inc., New York. Copyright ©1993 Text about Ivan Gantschev by Dr Barbara Scharioth, Executive Director of the International Youth Library, Munich.
All rights reserved.
Printed in Hong Kong by ColorPrint Offset Ltd.
Colour separations by TEAMS, Hong Kong Typesetting on Apple Macintosh / Quark Xpress ISBN 3-85195-316-9 NEUGEBAUER VERLAG ISBN 1-55858-231-2 NORTH-SOUTH BOOKS
Ivan Gantschev is the most successful water-colourist among picture book artists and tries in this way to describe his picture book technique. Of course, he does not view his painting technique as a theoretical problem. The water-colour simply belongs to him, has become a part of his life. When you look at the best picture books published in Germany over the past fifteen years, you come across time and again Ivan Gantschev’s books, among them so successful titles such as Ota The Bear (1977, published in ten countries so far), The Moonlake (1981), Santa's Favorite Story (1982), or The Journey Of The Storks (1983). In 1985 he was awarded the prize of the International Jury of the BIB, the Biennial of Illustrators in Bratislava, the most famous illustrators’ exhibition in the world.
Only a few German artists have received this award. From the titles alone you can recognize a second characteristic of Ivan Gantschev’s picture books. Most of them - and in my opinion, the best of his picture books - are dedicated to nature. From his flat on the fourth floor in the West end of Frankfurt, where he can see a lot of the sky but only scarce patches of green, the painter has dreamt and imagined extensive landscapes with sleepy villages, dense woods, clear lakes, murmuring streams, and wonderful mountain vistas - often in the change of the seasons.
His feeling for nature is heightened by this wish for harmony, by his notion of the unity of plants and animals under an all-outstretching sky. He translates this visually into scenery that is expansive, but which conveys at the same time a sense of home and security.
Most of the texts of his books have been written by himself and reflect nature themes in different ways, but they always end with a happy resolution. The gentle tone of these picture books, the warmth they radiate, their unspectacular, simple stories with clear messages - these qualities have earned Gantschev’s picture books a secure place in the playrooms and nurseries of our children.
But by no means has it been this way from the beginning.
At first, no German publisher wanted to print his picture books and that is why they were published first in Japan. Some of the books published there still do not exist in a German edition. It started with Mousemax Flies Around The World (1973) and The Story Of The Pear Tree (1974, both by RSW, Esslingen). These books resulted from conversations at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 1972 with the big Japanese publisher Gakken. At that time, the Japanese were eager to publish Gantschev’s pictures. They bought the rights, but they paid only a ridiculously small flat fee. They printed and sold an edition of 120,000 to 130,000 copies, and Gantschev received no royalty on these sales.
But the excellent response of the Japanese encouraged Gantschev to continue painting picture books. In 1975, the book Siri And The Tiger was published in Japan, and for the first time Gantschev wrote the story himself. One year later, this picture book was published by Peters Verlag, Hanau. Germany. Since then about 30 of his picture books have been published first in the German language, most of them by Neugebauer Verlag, Salzburg.
But anyone who wants to know more about Gantschev and his picture books will have to visit him. Reserved, almost shy, he speaks from deep within himself, disclosing private thoughts and feelings with reluctance. Nevertheless, here are some facts.
He was born in 1925 in Tirnovo, Bulgaria, and studied painting and graphics at the Academy of Art in Sofia. Due to the political riots and the first Bulgarian purge in 1949, he had to leave the Academy and was called up to the army. In the time after Stalin, more relaxed political circumstances gave him more possibilities for artistic work. He developed book covers, created drawings for public relations, designed posters for theatre plays and films, and took part in projects of the government’s “art at the construction”. But again and again he had to justify himself, because “under totalitarian regimes many feel bound to give signals”.
Those years have left a mark, for even today, after living in Germany so long and being a German citizen for ten years, Gantschev speaks and expresses himself very cautiously.
Tired of the constant effort to keep the political surveillance at bay, he looked for an escape abroad. He met a German woman at the Black Sea coast, and after their marriage, he finally applied for a passport. He visited Germany in 1966, and never returned. His father, an innocent murder victim under the old regime in Bulgaria, was eventually “rehabilitated", but still Gantschev has not been back to his homeland. From then to now Ivan Gantschev has been living in Germany. He earned a living first working for a big newspaper, the RHEINPFALZ. designing posters, advertisements, and layouts. Later on he moved to Frankfurt and worked for a multi-national public relations agency until 1988. Since then he has been a free-lance artist.
For Ivan Gantschev, being an artist means being a picture book artist, because the picture book is his very own domain, with lands and peoples, scenes and settings, laws and justice under his own control. His pictures and stories have grown from the rich context of his own experiences and his own dreams of a better world.
He finds great individual freedom with in the somewhat narrow limits of a narrative structure.
Many drawings and water-colours in his sketchbooks have gone on to become the basis for books, for always Gantschev paints stories. It is the course of events, the development of a story, the before and after, that he loves. He is not challenged by the creation of a single picture, but rather finds his satisfaction in a sequence of pictures that tell a story.
Perhaps this approach was shaped by the many storyboards for commercials he did in the public relation agency where he also sketched the transposition for the film camera later on in the process. Although he speaks almost brusquely about his work in the PR agency when he says, “Advertising is strategy and not art " - still, his patient arranging, and the simplifying and leaving-out which characterize his picture book paintings, seem to be an influence resulting from his former job. This training as a visual communicator can be seen most clearly in the unobtrusive - yet purposeful -visual highlights which catch one’s eye consciously only on careful examination of his work. One colour dot that clashes with the colours dominating a picture; a bit of orange in a predominantly green-blue context; a seemingly random touch of red in a grey-white snow landscape: all these are scarcely noticed but. nevertheless, have a definite impact on the atmosphere. the radiance of the pictures. With these observations I have come back to the water-colour technique that Gantschev has been developing since he began painting as a child. First of all: water-colours consist of pigments in a water-soluble binding agent. Transparency is the essence of all but the purposefully opaque watercolours, and the painting ground shines through more or less, depending on how intensely the colour is applied. Since their earliest appearance, watercolours have been used to colour pencil drawings. Only in England at the end of the 18, and the beginning of the 19’ century did the water-colour technique develop into an independent painting method - think of William Turner or John Constable. In modern picture books you very often find this coloured-drawing style of water-colour. From Lisbeth Zwerger to Helme Heine, from F.K. Waechter to Inge Steineke, they all use more or less distinctly the stroke of the pencil, the brush or the pen, to define the boundaries of forms. These artists also develop some of the characteristics of their specific styles from the dual nature of applied water-colours and outlined or hatched drawings, benefitting from the differences between these combined media. Gantschev works completely differently. He also draws the configuration of the picture as well as its subjects and the outlines of the landscapes, but his line stroke seems to be invisible. Carefully, he traces the lines to the painting ground, so that they remain shadowy and soft. When applying the colour, he tries to confine the colour areas with different degrees of moisture. On dry paper there are “hard" boundaries between colours, while on wetter paper the colours blend more.
These techniques are Gantschev’s specialty. They show his secure feeling for colours, his knowledge of the reactions of the different pigments.
By dabbing, wiping, rubbing, and fast drying (with a hair-dryer) he influences the effect of the colours. With ox-bile, an organic substance, he takes the colour pigments off the paper and achieves in that manner speckles or patterns within the colour areas. As early as 1977 he had already mastered this diversified technique, as can be seen in Ota, der Bar (Ota The Bear, 1977). His absolute command of it is shown distinctly in the big double page pictures of his book Wo ich gehoren bin (Where I Was Born, 1978) with poems by Silvius. It is not a picture book for children, but is rather a bibliophile book that will inspire adults to reflect upon and dream about the beautiful, atmospheric impressions of nature.
Gantschev’s composition, his conception of the picture area, catches one's eye. It is simply area, nothing else. It is two-dimensional, limited by the picture format, yet often going across the bounds of the pictures. There is seldom depth in his pictures. Landscapes, trees and mountains, houses, squares, and people are arranged either on a small “stage" or more often one above the other. His views of villages and towns are "mountains of houses" consisting of piled-up areas. Especially impressive is his view of the nocturnal Bethlehem in the book The Christmas Story by Father Christmas, also published as Santa's Favorite Story (1982). This picture can be compared to one of the water-colours of Tunis by August Macke, painted during two weeks in 1914.
Macke’s "Kairouan 1" in the State Gallery of Modern Art in Munich shows his arrangement of the areas, the purposeful wet-in-wet technique in an impressive interplay with dry. hard bounds and limited colour areas. Macke tried to break up the areas in these water-colours, to dissolve the objects in the picture in their clear form without endangering the tectonics of the composition. Gantschev applies a different method. Starting with the format of the picture, he works with the balance of the picture’s elements. Even in pictures implying a profound spaciousness such as in Der Weihnachtszug (The Christmas Train, 1982), the area of the picture is not broken up optically.
But still, Gantschev finds a characteristic dynamic for the sequencing of his pictures. His means of tension and motion is the frequent change in the point of view. In The Journey Of the Storks (1983) one gets the impression of flying over landscapes and towns, rivers and seas, like Nils Holgersson on the back of a bird. In The Moonlake (1981) the onlooker is near one moment, then far away. In Der Weihnachtszug (The Christinas Train, 1982) - a story which goes back to Gantschev’s family history and is therefore dedicated to his mother - you watch first from a distance, and then more and more through the eyes of the child who wants to warn the train that thunders ever nearer of the rock that lias fallen onto the rails. Finally, the viewer is again outside of the story, and in the last picture he bids farewell to the lonely linesman's house in the snow-covered mountain scenery.
The degree to which Gantschev is a water-colourist shows in his usage of acrylic colours. In Where Is Mr. Mole? (1989), a story he wrote about a venturesome mole, Gantschev works with opaque acrylic colours as if they were pigments of water-colours. To bring acrylic colours to life - according to Gantschev - requires many overpaintings, many layered glazes. A painting done with acrylic colours has to be "conducted”, whereas a watercolour is like a horse-cart on its way home: if the coachman falls asleep, the horses find their way alone. The luminosity of these acrylic pictures is impressive. However, the brightness of a beach motif, painted a little later with water-colours, or the silvery shine of the nocturnal lake scenery in Good Morning, Good Night (1991) -a picture book about the rivalry and friendship between the sun and the moon - is unique. This quiet book, with very little action and a spare text written by Gantschev, shows perfectly his mastery of water-colours. It seems as if he paints his pictures with effortless ease. His recently published book, The Christmas Teddy Dear, gives the same feeling. Often, one gets the impression that in his water-colours and the accompanying stories, the painter is looking for the harmony he has lost in reality.
Copyright ©1993 by Ivan Gantschev and Michael Neugebauer Verlag AG, Gossau-Ztirich, Switzerland Published in German by Michael Neugebauer Verlag AG, Gossau-Ziirich/Frankfurt/Salzburg
First published in English in 1994 by North-South Books, an imprint of Nord-Siid Verlag AG, Gossau-Ztirich, Switzerland. Distributed in the United States by North-South Books Inc., New York. Copyright ©1993 Text about Ivan Gantschev by Dr Barbara Scharioth, Executive Director of the International Youth Library, Munich.
All rights reserved.
Printed in Hong Kong by ColorPrint Offset Ltd.
Colour separations by TEAMS, Hong Kong Typesetting on Apple Macintosh / Quark Xpress ISBN 3-85195-316-9 NEUGEBAUER VERLAG ISBN 1-55858-231-2 NORTH-SOUTH BOOKS
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