Is there terminology for this sort of tableaux style image, where there’s lots of activity and little visual gags thrown in all over the place that only reveal themselves if you’re paying attention to the individuals rather than the whole? I figure someone’s gotta have a name for it. Whether it’s referring to Hieronymus Bosch’s The Last Judgment or a Where’s Waldo book, it’s clearly an art trope that has been around a minute.
Wimmelbilderbuch or wimmelbook or even just wimmelbilder
Your question led me to digging around a bit from highlight magazine to where’s Waldo, trying to find the term for the art style. Eventually that led me to the wimmelbilder subreddit dedicated to building where’s Waldo like art.
Checking that term led me here to Wimmelbilderbuch
A Wimmelbilderbuch (German, literally “teeming picture book”), wimmelbook, or hidden picture book is a type of large-format, wordless picture book. It is characterized by full-spread drawings (sometimes across gatefold pages) depicting scenes richly detailed with humans, animals, and objects.[1] Typically made for children, the drawings are filled with characters and items that may be discovered.
Although it says wordless it does seem the closest fit but maybe you or somebody else can dig further for a better term if there is one.
I regret to say I’ve not discovered anything which fits the bill better than your discovery, although, in the interest of full disclosure, I gotta admit that I got immediately sidetracked because your answer rattled a memory loose from the cobwebs of my mind. Devoid of any context, I saw an image from one of those hidden picture books and I had to track it down. I Spy: Spooky Mansion, if you’re curious. I will have to investigate the “genre” question tomorrow.
Is there terminology for this sort of tableaux style image, where there’s lots of activity and little visual gags thrown in all over the place that only reveal themselves if you’re paying attention to the individuals rather than the whole? I figure someone’s gotta have a name for it. Whether it’s referring to Hieronymus Bosch’s The Last Judgment or a Where’s Waldo book, it’s clearly an art trope that has been around a minute.
Wimmelbilderbuch or wimmelbook or even just wimmelbilder
Your question led me to digging around a bit from highlight magazine to where’s Waldo, trying to find the term for the art style. Eventually that led me to the wimmelbilder subreddit dedicated to building where’s Waldo like art.
Checking that term led me here to Wimmelbilderbuch
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wimmelbilderbuch
Or wimmelbook
Although it says wordless it does seem the closest fit but maybe you or somebody else can dig further for a better term if there is one.
I regret to say I’ve not discovered anything which fits the bill better than your discovery, although, in the interest of full disclosure, I gotta admit that I got immediately sidetracked because your answer rattled a memory loose from the cobwebs of my mind. Devoid of any context, I saw an image from one of those hidden picture books and I had to track it down. I Spy: Spooky Mansion, if you’re curious. I will have to investigate the “genre” question tomorrow.
Great job. That’s so neat that the style has a specific term. I love it. It fits the style so well!