My first taste of illustrations for the Snow Queen were those by Edmund Dulac. I'm sharing three in this post, but there are seven in total by Dulac for the fairy tale, all of which are available on SurLaLune at Dulac's Snow Queen.
I've been looking at these for so many years now that I notice Dulac's influence on other illustrators of the tale, most often in composition, which I think is a compliment to the master Dulac was. I don't consider his Snow Queen overall his best work, but one of my favorite images is the one at the top of the page of Gerda and the Reindeer. This image receives a lot of traffic and was requested for SurLaLune's Snow Queen shop on CafePress years ago. It is also popular this time of year since so many want illustrations of reindeer. Tomorrow I will share Honor Appleton's image of Gerda and the Reindeer, another popular image.
What interests me most about Dulac's illustrations is that Kay is nowhere to be seen in the paintings. His portrayals center around the Snow Queen and Gerda and the supporting characters. Where is Kay? Why no Kay? Oh well, some questions can't be answered.
Finally, Dulac's books are long out of print, of course, and very costly collectables. However, many of his illustrations are available in Dulac's Fairy Tale Illustrations in Full Color compiled by Jeff A. Menges. Only five of the Snow Queen illustrations are included in the collection.
Better yet, you can choose a recent reprint of the original, published by Calla Editions: Stories from Hans Christian Andersen illustrated by Edmund Dulac. It was printed just over a year ago and also includes The Nightingale, The Real Princess, The Garden of Paradise, The Mermaid, The Emperor's New Clothes and The Wind's Tale. The edition is a facsimile of the original edition and quite lovely, imitating the tipped in type of plates (although they aren't tipped in). The colors aren't as vibrant as the original plates, but they are more than satisfactory and it's lovely to have the book at a reasonable price. (My allergies also prefer the new paper.)
Thursday, December 24, 2009
Snow Queen Week: Edmund Dulac
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Snow Queen Week: Vladyslav Yerko
Vladyslav Yerko has illustrated the Snow Queen and the book has appeared in several editions, most in Europe. The book appears to be out of print in the U.S., but it is available used or through the website designed to promote the book, snowqueen.us.
Here's some information about the book and its sales from the site:
Anderson House Foundation is proud to present one of the best fairy tales of all time, The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen.
This collectible children's book, richly illustrated by award winning Ukrainian artist Vladyslav Yerko, also well known for his illustrations of the Harry Potter books, is a unique Holiday gift for children of all ages.
AHF has exclusive rights to distribute
a special art edition of this children's bestseller across the US and Canada.
The quantity is limited.
All collected funds are used for AHF charitable projects.
Yerko's work is quite lovely and can be found around the internet. Of course, he is well-known for his Harry Potter illustrations as stated above, just not in the U.S. once again. (The wonderful Mary GrandPré is the illustrator known in the U.S. for Harry Potter.)
I only hope his work becomes more prominent in the U.S. as well.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Fairy Tales and Children
This one came up in my searches yesterday despite a very slow fairy tale news week: Fairy Tales, Child Development, And Unconscious Learning by Susan Kim, author of Flow: The Cultural Story of Menstruation with Elissa Stein.
Most of the fairy tale referencing is in conjunction to Bettelheim, whom folklorists all take with a big salt lick. The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales is currently out-of-print which shocks me no end considering its classroom use, but is still available in many used editions. It won't be out-of-print for much longer since a new edition is due out in May 2010.
And here's an excerpt from the article, too:
This doesn't mean it's overt; trust me, you'll be searching the Brothers Grimm until hell freezes over if you're looking for specific references to the endometrium, follicle-stimulating hormones, or Fallopian tubes. But even the most metaphor-challenged can't help but notice how many times the color red plays an important role in a fairy tale involving a young girl, or how often blood is a significant part of the plot: Little Red Riding Hood, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty ... even Cinderella and that weird little bird singing "there's blood in the shoe".
Fairy tales communicate strong, unconscious messages to children in terms they can grasp and even carry into adulthood. This is because these stories possess genuine resonance and dreamlike power, the kind you're just not going to find, say, on your average TV sitcom. As for sitcoms, I've found that literal references to menstruation in film and on television, while more common than you might think, are singularly underwhelming. Even when a woman's period isn't treated as the eye-rolling punchline to another sophomoric joke, the best-intentioned references tend to be bland and safe, with a distinct lack of resonance or importance attached to the process. Nothing I've seen as an adult even hints at the mystery and potential psychological power of menstruation the way fairy tales do... with the possible exception of one movie.
Snow Queen Week: Read More About It
I'm at the point of December when I realize not everything I planned or hoped to accomplish is going to happen. The critical stuff is done, but the extras are now demanding prioritization. I'm so happy my traveling is done for the month. I planned and planned but the trip earlier this month still brought me home way behind.
I confess at this point one of the lower priorities is the blog but I am still committed to daily posts, especially since I have already gathered materials for Snow Queen Week. I just haven't had much time to sort and edit very well.
Then today when I checked my blog roll, I discovered that The Fairy Tale Cupboard has a lovely entry about the Snow Queen, discussing its history and relation to other stories, such as Father Frost, the Snow Maiden and even C. S. Lewis's The Lion, the Witch and the the Wardrobe. To read it yourself, see Queens of snow and ice. So I don't have to worry about writing something similar during the holiday crunch. Thanks!
That said, I myself came to The Snow Queen late in life. I had never read it until I started SurLaLune years ago. It wasn't included in my Andersen's tales growing up and it escaped my notice consequently. As a child I loved fairy tales and fantasy books, but I had no one guiding my steps beyond what I discovered on my own--my visits to the library were infrequent and no one explained the 398 call number to me. (Fairy tales in the nonfiction section? Never imagined it! I thought there were so few because they were considered childish and thus ignored, not because they had their own section in the library.) My fairy tale reading was consequently quite limited to a few volumes at home but I read through quite a bit of the fiction stacks. And now you know another reason for SurLaLune--I have not just rediscovered but discovered many tales during my voracious research over the years. Needless to say, Snow Queen was a revelation to me.
The illustration above is by Milo Winter for the tale. Excepting images of Gerda with the reindeer by other illustrators, it is one of the most popular images for the tale on SurLaLune and one of my personal favorites, too. It is also available on several items in SurLaLune's CafePress Shop.
Neha Dhupia for Go Green calendar Photoshoot
The Highest Railways in the World
