Art by Yuri Hill.
1960s/70s illustrations from Dutch children’s series, Paulus the woodgnome. By Jean Dulieu (1921-2006).
Starting out as a newspaper strip in the 1940s, Paulus appeared in children’s novels, TV puppet shows, radio plays, et cetera, and all by this one guy, Jean Dulieu. Great artist.
I read many of the books when I was a kid; the woods were never quite the same after that. I loved the atmosphere: there was always a kind of autumn dread in the air, Paulus had animal friends, but usually he was alone, just roaming about, hoping not to run into anything bad. The woods were dangerous, or rather, indifferent. The witch, Eucalypta, might seem kind of genial in these illustrations, but she was a real terror. Running into her meant trouble: the black kind.
I’ll do a post about the puppet shows later on, because seeing is believing.
