Tortillas and Lullabies/Tortillas y Cancioncitas by Lynn Reiser; Pictures by Corazones Valientes |
Through layout: The layout of the four figures implies the passage of time from one figure to the next, with the upper left figure (the great-grandmother) being the oldest, and the bottom right (the protagonist) the most recent. That is, time in this illustration can been seen as flowing from left to right and from top to bottom of the page.
Through color: The gradual lightening of
skin from the great-grandmother (upper left-hand figure) to the grandmother
(upper right-hand figure) to the mother (bottom left-hand figure) suggests the
increasing genetic influence of Europeans in Central America throughout these
time periods. The protagonist (lower right), the most contemporary of the three
women, has slightly darker skin than her mother. In this way, the illustration
also depicts the more recent increase in Central American miscegenation.
Through image details: The outfits of the
four figures portray changes in Central American fashion over the past four
generations, as do the hairstyles. Note that only the two most contemporary
figures (the mother and the protagonist) wear shoes.
Through framing: The white spaces around each of the four portraits (called "air frames") indicate that the figures are not part of the same scene. That is, the four portraits do not represent simultaneously occurring incidents. Combining the information expressed though the air frames with the knowledge that the four women represent different generations (gleaned from the text), viewers of this illustration might perceive that each of the four portraits represents a figure from a different time period.
