The influence of imagery in our understanding of and familiarity with certain fairytales is ubiquitous. When one thinks of Sleeping Beauty, Hansel and Gretel, Red Riding Hood, and Beauty and the Beast, familiar images of scenes or characters pop up naturally in our heads. While the majority of people will first think of the Disney interpretation of certain fairytales, the original art interpretations of fairytales are drastically different. In the world of fairytales in printed collections, the name of Arthur Rackham reigns supreme.
Rackham was an English artist and illustrator who has been mostly known for his work on fairytales. Born in 1867, Rackham lived in the Victorian era and provided images for the tales of the Brothers Grimm, Alice in Wonderland, A Midsummer-Night’s Dream, Rhinegold and the Valkyrie, Wind in the Willows, and countless fairytale books.
Rackham’s illustrations and interpretations of fairytales have common characteristics among them. Rackham enjoys portraying scenes in a dark yet innocent fashion: the scenes he depicts are filled with black, dark browns, and intense shadows, and the main characters in the scene are often colored with muted tones. His lines are very soft and, and he combines hard angles of trees and houses with the supple lines of his characters. His backgrounds are just as detailed as his characters, as seen in these examples.
The sharpest contrasts between our common conceptions of fairytales and Rackham’s famous interpretations are the following: he draws fairy godmothers to be ugly (actually, witch-like), his scenes are filled with dark colors, and fairies are drawn as humans with wings rather than small pixie-like creatures. Like modern illustrations, Rackham portrays female protagonists as beautiful and delicate, and male heroes as handsome and strong.
Here are the four examples:
- Sleeping Beauty
- Hansel and Gretel
- Cinderella
- Red Riding Hood
No comments:
Post a Comment