Apologues

In this delightful book, artist and storyteller Henri van Bentum creates stories inspired from his youth in the Low Lands of Holland and from his life experiences. It is a magical world in which animals and insects can talk to each other — and some humans even can hear them. These wonderful stories are especially suitable for reading aloud to young children, whose imagination can feast on the fairylike imagery.


Apologues are fables, especially having animals or inanimate objects as characters. They are ancient, originating in the Middle Eastern civilizations surrounding Egypt, and extending to Babylonia and Persia in Asia Minor. Each apologue in this collection contains a subtle moral teaching appropriate to today.


The images in the book are selections from van Bentum’s magnum opus, Organiverse, a series of 100 mandalas or spheres 8.5 centimeters in diameter, painted in pointillism, dot by dot. The original work, known as Organiverse: Helios edition, was created in 1972 while Henri and his wife Natasha lived in Morocco, and then on the island of Madeira.


Organiverse: Starry Night edition was created several years later. Both editions are represented here. Recently, van Bentum collaborated with NASA’s Chandra X-Ray Observatory on Coloring Space, a juxtaposition of Organiverse: Starry Night pointillisms with images from space.