The relationship between literature and illustration in ‘História do capuchinho vermelho contada a crianças e nem por isso’, by Manuel António Pina

Abstract

The present article intends to analyze the relationship between literature and illustration in the tale História do Capuchinho Vermelho contada a crianças e nem por isso, by Manuel António Pina, which includes six pastel paintings of the visual artist Paula Rego. We will look at some of the similarities and differences between the tale of the Portuguese author and the previous versions of Perrault and the Brothers Grimm. We will emphasize, above all, the importance of illustrations in children’s stories, highlighting the need to combine two types of text — pictorial and verbal — and concluding that the pictorial may assists in the decoding of the verbal text. It also becomes necessary to think of concepts such as “beautiful” and “grotesque”, often present in Paula Rego’s work.