A study on postmodern characteristics of Bruno Munari's picturebooks

Bruno Munari (1902-1998) was an undisputed genius much ahead of his time and his creativity reached every field of art. Books are also an important part of his art and some of them can be categorized as children’s picturebooks. These books made use of simple paper engineering and from binding to the choice of the paper, the materiality of the book as an object was much emphasized, offering various tactile, of sound, even of smell experience to the readers. For this study Munari’s children’s picturebooks were divided into 3 categories: 1945 series, picturebooks using the materiality of the book, and Folktale parody. Those books show very postmodern characteristics such as game and acting, and metafiction and intertextuality, a new kind of literacy needed for reading the peritext. Readers are also invited to active reading and make meanings. Those books were first published in the middle of the 20th Century, so historically before the full manifestation of the postmodern picturebook, but in the frame of contemporary postmodern picturebooks, Munari’s books in various aspects show those postmodern qualities and foresaw the further expansion of postmodern picturebooks.