Picture Books: T is for Talented Chapter Book Illustrators

Tasha Tudor and John Tenniel bring forward an issue: 

Are picture book images different from illustrations for chapter books? 

I don't care much for Tasha Tudor's art, but I admire her illustrations for The Secret Garden. My Frances Hodgson Burnett three-novel volume uses the illustrations of Gareth Floyd, and I prefer those illustrations (possibly partly due to nostalgia). But Tudor's illustrations are lush and beautifully presented in a recent edition of The Secret Garden. 

I have a very high opinion of John Tenniel as the illustrator of the Alice in Wonderland books and can't really imagine the books without his illustrations. However, unlike with Quentin Blake's pen & ink sketches, I find Tenniel's illustrations a trifle too unsettling to read a picture book exclusively devoted to Tenniel. 

In a prior post, I reference how much I enjoy Norman Rockwell's magazine covers, then add that I was entirely unimpressed by his picture book and the picture book created with his images. 

Likewise, in this list, I've read books where the illustrations were fantastic--the text less so--as well as books where illustration and text came together to form a perfect aesthetic combination. I've also seen illustrations that, when blown up to art gallery proportions, looked worthy of an art gallery, and I've seen illustrations that, when blown up to art gallery proportions, looked all wrong.

Medium matters and, I would argue, context. Tudor is all about rich wholesomeness. Many of her books tackle festivals and holidays and prayer. Tenniel was a political cartoonists. His illustrations are sharp, almost cruel in their focus. 

Neither one of them is Brett Helquist of Lemony Snicket fame. 

And it is doubtful if any of the three could pass as picture book illustrators as opposed to chapter book illustrators. 

It's an odd problem. And doesn't even reach the problem of manga and comic books, where the illustrations sometimes seem like mere placeholders for the story--

Except I have preferences there as well. 

No answers--just a lot of hmmm.