Scribbles,scrawls, and scratches: Graphic play as subtext in the picture books of Ezra Jack Keats

Conclusion Although Keats works in a two-dimensional medium, his illustrations are fully three-dimensional in both geometric perspective and narrative intentionality. Using collage technique that floats planes of color on a sea of textural richness, Keats is able to maximize his voice, or voices, as he speaks to us through multiple images—personalities—embedded within his illustrative frame. Keats's technique, paradoxically, runs counter to the historical development of collage as a form of antiaesthetic criticism used by early surrealist painters. Whereas such painters as Duchamp, Arp, Schwitters, and Ernst strike out against traditional aesthetic categories, Keats embraces them, focusing upon the achievement of a certain rhythmic unity in his work. In this sense, he achieves the height of picture book art by dissolving the thin line between text and illustration, and he does so primarily by playing with various graphic images as subtexts that both clarify and extend his main narrative intentions.He is past recipient of the Ezra Jack Keats Fellowship, de Grummond Collection, University of Southern Mississippi, and the author of several books for children includingNight is Coming (Dutton).