This article discusses the significance of illustrations in nonsense literature (e.g. Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll) and how illustrations could be nonsensical as such, i.e. what kind of criteria would be valid if we want to recognise nonsense in different media. The aim of this article is to develop new tools for better understanding the illustrations of nonsense literature. Taking the definitions of literary nonsense as a starting point, the article proceeds by examining how the basic nonsense criteria would be applicable in visual media. There are numerous parallels between verbal and pictorial representation in illustrated nonsense literature, but this article focuses on five central aspects: 1) contradiction between word and picture (tension between meaning and absence of meaning), 2) words and language taken literally, 3) metafiction, 4) topsy-turvydom, and 5) lack of emotional involvement. None of these necessarily make a picture or a text-picture combination nonsense, but rather the nonsensicality of a picture or a text-picture combination is generated by a mutual interaction of all or some of these features.