Dick Bruna, the prolific Dutch illustrator and author, who has died aged 89, is best known as the creator of the iconic, minimalist figure of Nijntje, known in English as Miffy.
Miffy first appeared in Dutch illustrated books for the very young, but now graces merchandise for every age group the world over, as well as greeting visitors to her home country from the walls of Schiphol airport in Amsterdam.
Appearing first in 1955, in a picture book based on a story Bruna told his young son during a holiday, after they had seen a rabbit, Miffy is a simply drawn little bunny in a dress, shown only in outline, on a white page. Her house is white with scarlet shutters. Miffy remained unchanged in the many subsequent titles, although there is sometimes a scarf or hat, or outlines filled with a solid primary colour to show a change of outfit. Initially, and until the books were translated into English, the character was just a small rabbit; the gender was not defined. The most important feature of the books, Bruna said, was that “Miffy is always Miffy and a house is always a house”.
Even Miffy’s face remains apparently constant, with black dots of eyes and a cross of a mouth, although occasionally there is an addition, such as a tear. But, by an infinitesimal tilt of her head, shutting of her eyes or the position of her head in a room or a landscape, Bruna gave Miffy a full range of responses as she did all the things familiar to preschool children, such as celebrating a birthday, going to the zoo, visiting a playground or going to the seaside.
Miffy’s life is stylised and idealised, and the jaunty tone of the rhyming couplets which map out the story that the illustrations tell so eloquently adds to the upbeat feel of the books, which are reassuring to children and adults alike. From the moment of her birth, heralded in the original Miffy title by the arrival of an angel just when the rabbit mother has thought what a nice thing it would be to cook for three, Miffy glides apparently effortlessly and gracefully through the always busy and sometimes tempestuous years of a toddler. In his stylistically cool illustrations, Bruna warm-heartedly celebrated the apparently minor but nonetheless significant milestones of the very young by cleverly fusing visual sophistication with emotional simplicity.