Of Books & Long Tails
Iva Sasheva
The Enchanted Garden is another book by the successful tandem of poet Nikolay Grozny and artist Iva Sasheva. “I wait, sometimes a cat, sometimes a mouse… A plush hand opens the curtain of the night.” This pure poetry finds its simple form in the minimalistically composed facing pages – the text on the left-hand page, the illustration on the right – in a format close to a square. And after reading the poems, the illustrations can be interpreted independently as surrealistic paintings with messages of their own. They are reminiscent of alternating scenes from a chamber play. The leaves, branches, and shadows appear to be in constant motion. The characters seem to be connected by invisible strings, noticeably attracting or repelling each other like magnets with changing poles. The grayish-silvery color palette is pierced by accents in golden ocher and red. The illustrator’s watercolor technique is delicate and controlled, and the characters have clear silhouettes to visually convey a squirrel in a top hat and jacket, fallen apples that look like snails, a sky like an expanse of velvet, stars cut out of paper... Music has seeped into all the illustrations, giving a special charm to this extraordinary book.
