Showing posts with label fairy tales. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fairy tales. Show all posts
Friday, November 16, 2012
artus scheiner
Some of these owe Dulac big-time but that doesn't mean these renderings of fairy tales, Shakespeare, and sundry ancient mythology and Czech epic aren't beautiful or imbued with a style all their own... Thanks 50watts!
Monday, October 22, 2012
john d batten
One of my pet peeves with tumblr and pinterest is that while it's got a plethora of swanky imagery, I kind of like having some context for the pictures, like who took them or where they came from or what exactly they're portraying. Maybe it's the inner bibliothequer in me, I don't know, but I like having backstory and all, but if there's a starting point, it's a welcome thing, to find other rabbit holes to tumble down. Not much about him out there, but these were the kind of things that enthralled me as a kid.
Monday, August 20, 2012
sulamith wulfing
Illustrator, child of theosophist parents, kind of reminds me of a more softened Dulac or Rackham. The pastel fuzziness could be more cheesy in the wrong hands (not terribly shocking that Stevie Nicks is a fan), but the intricate detailing really makes it for me, especially in the black and white decorations here.
Monday, June 4, 2012
Monday, May 7, 2012
maybe what you see isn't part of me at all...
There were so many things that happened... a night at the cinema, social obligations akin to females involving the pending matrimony of friends, and I ducked out before the housewares came out of the boxes to start preparing for the dinner soiree but detoured to the Fun Wall and mingled among graffiti artists and skateboarders and those who love them, shooting photos of breakdancers and aerosol cans and little kids wandering around in the teenage wasteland of Clevelandia. Breakbeats and generator party soundsystems and a refreshing lack of corporate sponsorship, the only festival thing that wasn't institution related where people of every conceivable background if not age were hanging out together.
The hours dripped away, dinner for some old friends from the Parmastan and Kent years, waking up early to play guitar and sing to God praying through a hundred doubts and distractions and hearing the voices before me rise in a way that crystallized beyond any effort of mine, and afterwards we spoke again for the first time in years and while we had a lot to say, to catch up on, I knew that it would end there. And that's okay. I'm accustomed to a lack of requition, but almost three decades on and this just starts to get old.
And now I'm back here, dealing with ditzy undergrads and egocentric academics who understand the balance of power well and can make passes at women twenty years their junior without fear of recompense and so all I can do is scowl and complete the transaction with a minimum of eye contact. I just don't want to be here today.
The hours dripped away, dinner for some old friends from the Parmastan and Kent years, waking up early to play guitar and sing to God praying through a hundred doubts and distractions and hearing the voices before me rise in a way that crystallized beyond any effort of mine, and afterwards we spoke again for the first time in years and while we had a lot to say, to catch up on, I knew that it would end there. And that's okay. I'm accustomed to a lack of requition, but almost three decades on and this just starts to get old.
And now I'm back here, dealing with ditzy undergrads and egocentric academics who understand the balance of power well and can make passes at women twenty years their junior without fear of recompense and so all I can do is scowl and complete the transaction with a minimum of eye contact. I just don't want to be here today.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
once upon a time
Having spent time in academia, there was much talk about the patriarchal attitude of fairy tales, of Freudian implications of spindles pricked, of stereotypically beautiful and good heroines, archetypal damsels in distress, sleeping beauties and someday-my-prince-will-comes, and the uncensored versions sanitized by Disney films where the villains perished in somewhat gory ways and the good people lived happily ever after. Who lives happily ever after anyway? That never happens.
Evidently here's parents who won't read their kids the stories I grew up on because they might be "too scary," even though in my years of working in bibliotheques, I've seen kids checking out all sorts of freakish flicks that they had no business watching, so I don't know which is better.
The violence never bothered me, though the nightly news at my grandma's house was scary with the spectre of Amy Mihaljevic's murderer and bad things going down on the other side of town spooked me back then. There was no resolution to things like that, no closure, and it was too close, not within the bounds of pages of once upon a time long ago far away.
And I doubt that these tales gave me any unrealistic views of prince charmings because the overanalytical half of the brain doubted that anyone lived happily ever after and the concept of soulmates still seems just as fanciful as ghosts or fairy godmothers, and the more pedestrian versions in the picture books were not nearly as fabulous as the ones in the old tomes at my grandma's house or the tales from around the world that my sister and I would find at the library and devour with the gorgeous illustrations and gold-stamped bindings, the tales of smart and brave and beautiful girls dealing with all manner of adversity using their wits or their small resources to get through, Vasilisa and her tasks, Scheherezade and her stories, spinning tales with layers upon layers for survival.
There are no more ogres or wicked witches in the woods in search of children to eat and tender young women with which to be matrimonial, no Bluebeard, but predators still abound, those with smooth words and promises of wealth harboring dark appetites. No Snow Queen but what girl hasn't watched the heart of one she loves get stolen away by the icy beauty of another.
Beasts who turn out to be beautiful and dragons in need of slaying.
No witches or wicked stepmothers perhaps, but women who can be just as jealous, manipulative, and cruel, and even in some cases abusive. There are those unreasonable people in power who expect you to spin straw into gold because they can't see beyond their greed. Sometimes we sacrifice who we are for some strange twisting of love for someone who barely knows we exist.
These archetypes that seem so fanciful and black and white and childlike still resonate in a strange way, even when the lines between hero and villain and heroine and witch get blurred, because everyone thinks they're the star, the hero, the princess, and not always conscious that their non-heroic moments are at the expense of the slightly more innocent. And sometimes the endings aren't always happy and the travails and quests lead nowhere, and the morality of the good get rewarded and the bad get punished doesn't always pan out that way, which is why these are fictions in which we take such comfort.
Evidently here's parents who won't read their kids the stories I grew up on because they might be "too scary," even though in my years of working in bibliotheques, I've seen kids checking out all sorts of freakish flicks that they had no business watching, so I don't know which is better.
The violence never bothered me, though the nightly news at my grandma's house was scary with the spectre of Amy Mihaljevic's murderer and bad things going down on the other side of town spooked me back then. There was no resolution to things like that, no closure, and it was too close, not within the bounds of pages of once upon a time long ago far away.
And I doubt that these tales gave me any unrealistic views of prince charmings because the overanalytical half of the brain doubted that anyone lived happily ever after and the concept of soulmates still seems just as fanciful as ghosts or fairy godmothers, and the more pedestrian versions in the picture books were not nearly as fabulous as the ones in the old tomes at my grandma's house or the tales from around the world that my sister and I would find at the library and devour with the gorgeous illustrations and gold-stamped bindings, the tales of smart and brave and beautiful girls dealing with all manner of adversity using their wits or their small resources to get through, Vasilisa and her tasks, Scheherezade and her stories, spinning tales with layers upon layers for survival.
No witches or wicked stepmothers perhaps, but women who can be just as jealous, manipulative, and cruel, and even in some cases abusive. There are those unreasonable people in power who expect you to spin straw into gold because they can't see beyond their greed. Sometimes we sacrifice who we are for some strange twisting of love for someone who barely knows we exist.
These archetypes that seem so fanciful and black and white and childlike still resonate in a strange way, even when the lines between hero and villain and heroine and witch get blurred, because everyone thinks they're the star, the hero, the princess, and not always conscious that their non-heroic moments are at the expense of the slightly more innocent. And sometimes the endings aren't always happy and the travails and quests lead nowhere, and the morality of the good get rewarded and the bad get punished doesn't always pan out that way, which is why these are fictions in which we take such comfort.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Ivan Bilibin
Upon discovery of the aforementioned Vasnetsov, a swanky art book ordered through the channels available introduced us to the work of Ivan Bilibin, an illustrator with a similar subject matter, influenced by folk art, art nouveau, Japanese prints, lubok, and medieval illuminations, all things very dear to the heart of yours truly.
Vasilisa the Beautiful is one of my personal favorites, due to her Cinderella character being both beautiful and smart, dealing with the likes of wicked stepmothers and Baba Yaga. While dealing with seemingly impossible tasks and unreasonable people, especially in the form of jealous and irrational old women probably rings too close to reality, there's no disputing that this picture is badass in the most Slavic folklore way possible.
Vasilisa the Beautiful is one of my personal favorites, due to her Cinderella character being both beautiful and smart, dealing with the likes of wicked stepmothers and Baba Yaga. While dealing with seemingly impossible tasks and unreasonable people, especially in the form of jealous and irrational old women probably rings too close to reality, there's no disputing that this picture is badass in the most Slavic folklore way possible.
Although his life was cut short by the brutal siege of Leningrad in World War II, he did illustrations, advertisements, and set designs that somehow manage to be both epic and whimsical at the same time.
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