Illustration of the short story The Highest Branch on the Tree by Ray Bradbury

From Ullstein Encyclopaedia of Art:

“Illustration”. Term for the expansion of texts by visual descriptions which refer to the literary content and illustrate it.

You could, of course, quite superficially, illustrate real scenes of the story, what happens on the surface, e.g. the narrator’s (Douglas’) and Harry’s meeting. A visual illustration would be two men approaching each other or something like that. But this would not really do justice to the content of the story because the story deals with a lot more: the narrator is very self-conscious when he meets Harry unexpectedly, his conscience torments him whereas Harry acts out his total superiority, i.e. you would have to illustrate the “self-consciousness” of the one character and the “superiority” of the other as inner sensitivities, feelings…

How can you do that?

(And this applies to almost all the other “scenes” of the story, too – or is it worth while showing Harry between cars, while the others are passing by, running and panting?) This is what the text tells you – the picture (the illustration) would have to comment on or interpret the text.

The illustration does not have to be, or rather should not be naturalistic (not a photographic copy), but explain the content of the story by conscious stylization (simplification of form) or abstraction (restriction to essentials, emphasis of essentials by formal means like modification of size and space, arrangement, choice of colour, light and dark, modification of forms by conscious use of drawing or painting techniques…)

By using visual means you can produce completely new visual realities (in reality unimaginable), e.g. by combining imaginable / existing images, which, when put together, gain a completely new meaning.

Suggestions

• Illustrate the “tree scene” – from Harry’s point of view, - from the others’ point of view, from the narrator’s point of view. Can you visualize humiliation and / or triumph?
• Show how one person is always / or always seems to be better than the others.
• What does Harry look like as a boy, as an adult (e.g. look for photos in magazines or in the Internet, adapt them or print / photocopy them on transparencies and by overlapping create your own image of such a person.
• Can you visualize the narrator’s guilty conscience?
• What does the dead tree in Harry’s building mean to him personally, how does he see this tree, what does he see in it? – Which images does the narrator come up with when he sees this tree again in this environment?
• See above: Visualize superiority (the inferior person might be important here).
• Can you visualize how someone means “poison” for another person?
• Can you visualize Harry’s cleverness: “I’ve been jumping…” (line 159)
• What would a book cover of the short story look like?
• What do you imagine – or remember – when you think of bullying? Visualize this.

Maybe these suggestions will help you to find an important scene in the text which you could illustrate.

Use the Internet and Google to look up illustrations, Alfred Kubin, Wolf Vostell, A.R. Penck – there are unlimited opportunities – grab them!

The final illustrations are to be presented on the Internet within the Eirene project “Education against Violence”. All participating students are encouraged to hand in illlustrations.