The Moomins: Tribute to Tove

Represented are my renditions of two characters created by a new favourite illustrator of mine - Tove Jansson. Yes, I'll admit it, this is fan-art, something I tend to avoid, but leave me be.

©Puffin Books

Tove Jansson (1914-2001) was born into a well-to-do Swedish-speaking family in Helsinki, Finland (then part of the Russian Empire). An artist and writer, she is best remembered for a series of Moomin chapter books and comic strips. Set in a fictional forested area of Finland called Moomin Valley (what else?), the series follow the Moomin family - Moominmamma, Moominpappa and their son Moomintroll - in addition to a host of other characters such as the gentle Snork Maiden, the vagabond Snufkin and a range of obsessive-compulsive creatures called the Hemulens. It was on this series that she developed a truly distinctive, dreamlike pen-and-ink style.

I was first introduced to the characters and stories through the popular anime series of the 1990s that aired on the BBC, as perhaps many of my generation were. It was only recently that I actually discovered Tove's real tales and pictures. My favourite of the books I've read so far is probably Moominland Midwinter, where Moomintroll wakes up from hibernation and experiences a learning curve as he experiences a Nordic winter for the first time. Like A.A. Milne's original Winnie-the-Pooh, they're perfect character-driven blends of fantasy, whimsy and wisdom that are perfectly complemented by the gorgeous illustrations (for proof, click here or here or, more importantly, here...). The drawings range in exact technique from book to book, with my favourite being the etching-like pen-and-link approach I showed in the links, but her style always shines through - a dreaminess delightfully far detached from reality.

The style she used for creating a series that would become classics would also come in handy when creating illustrations for Scandinavian editions of the works of Britain's masters of fantasy literature. Her takes on Lewis Caroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and The Hunting of the Snark and J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit are highly original and refreshing. She clearly understands the texts she is illustrating, and interprets them in a unique way, whether that means returning The Hobbit to its Viking roots, or portraying Wonderland as a melancholy, quietly dangerous dreamland. Tate Publishing have made her visions of Lewis Carroll's texts available alongside the original English texts, though her version of The Hobbit is unfortunately not. The Moomin chapter books and comics are widely available.

NOTE: The Moomins are the creations of the late Tove Jansson and are copyrighted to Moomin Characters Ltd. Any images created by myself using these characters are celebrations of Jansson's oeuvre and are not meant for any commercial gain on my part.
http://www.moomin.com/eng/index.html