Earlier this week I decided I wanted to focus my research primarily on fairy tales from Russia. I love the variety of stories that have come from Russia: they have a wonderfully magical and dark feel that I think is slightly lacking from most of the fairy tales children are familiar with nowadays in this country. The magical and adventurous elements drew me in and made me want to explore them further, and I am excited at the prospect of working with these new narratives.
I began by looking at how Russian fairy tales and folk tales have been illustrated in the past - below is a scan of my sketchbook including scans from a book I have been looking at about Russian fairy tale art. Unfortunately this book does not contain any information about the stories themselves, so I have found information about them elsewhere. However, the illustrations are incredibly intricate and beautiful, and a majority of them are wood engravings.
(Scan from sketchbook, images from 'Fairytales in Russia' by E.N. Petrova)
The love the style of these wood engravings - I love the intricate detailing and how they feel classic but dramatic. I think the detail really helps immerse the viewer into the scene. The perspective of the drawings are quite simple and straight on to the main character. While this works and means we can see the whole scene, it would be interesting to take a new view and see things from a different perspective: perhaps from a much higher/lower viewpoint or a birds eye view. These simple perspectives work but I am intrigued as to how different perspectives can be used and even help illustrate the narrative more effectively.
Whilst researching different Russian folk art and how Russian fairy tales have been illustrated, I came across a Russian artist called Elizaveta Bohm, who practiced drawing silhouettes for over 20 years and is a known as a 'master of silhouette art' in Russia. She started her artwork in 1870 and mainly illustrated works by Russian writers and fairy tales. I think you can really get a sense of the characters she draws despite their lack of tonal and facial detail - you can tell what kind of character they are just by the shape and detail of their silhouette, what they're wearing and their body language. I am in awe of Bohm and the skill she acquired to effectively communicate the characters and their situations just with a silhouette, and sometimes with faint details of the setting in the background. I like Bohm's work so much I have researched some other artists that also use silhouettes as the main element in their illustrations.
I continued my research and discovered more about the use of paper cutting and silhouettes in narratives. In the late 19th and early 20th century, some illustrators began using paper cutting technique for their books - silhouette pictures could easily be printed by blocks that were cheaper to produce and lasted longer than detailed black and white hand drawn illustrations. One of the most famous fairy tale book illustrators is Arthur Rackham, who was also one of the first illustrators who used silhouette scenes in his books. You can see how artists like Bohm have informed his style in 'Sleeping Beauty' and 'Cinderella' - his silhouettes are very bold and striking with only a few props or details from the scene, giving a slightly minimalist feel.
Rackham completed these silhouette fairy tale books in the early 20th century, so I thought it would be helpful to start looking at illustrators today who use similar techniques. Niroot Puttapipat is a British artist who completed a whole series of silhouettes for a Russian Tales and Legends volume. What I love about this series by Puttapipat is how he has incorporated red with his black and white silhouettes, this is a refreshing new take on silhouettes and how they can illustrate narratives. 'The Firebird' illustration below is an excellent example of how he has used red with black and white to place emphasis on a character or a part of the narrative.
(Scan from sketchbook, text 'Tales and Translation' by Cay Dollerup, 1999)
I have also been looking at a book called 'Tales and Translation' by Cay Dollerup who writes about how fairy tales have been passed on and changed over many years, and how this in turn has affected how they have been illustrated. More detail on this is in my sketchbook, but above is a scan of an extract about black and white illustrations. I am briefly looking at black and white illustration as this is an important decision that illustrators have to make when illustrating anything! I am specifically looking at black and white vs. coloured pictures in fairy tale collections; Dollerup writes that black and white illustrations were originally intended for children in books, but gradually they became dominant pictures in the respectable fairy tale collections that were mainly intended for collectors - they were not cheap.
(Examples of black and white fairy tale illustrations from today (left) and the 19th Century (right)
This is useful for my research as I need at some point to decide whether or not to use colour in my illustrations for my final outcome - however it is slightly early to be looking at this now. I will look into this again later in my process when I am more developed with my visuals.
I have also been researching how Russia's fairy tales were repressed and changed due to Stalin and the Soviet regime because many fairy tales were believed to support the old Tsarist system and a capitalist economy. The Russian Government created the Union of Soviet Writers to focus on censoring fairy tales and children's literature to prevent inappropriate ideas from spreading. Writers only wrote fairy tales with Soviet ideologies and existing fairy tales were either eradicated or changed: for example instead of the protagonist receiving advice from a mythological being, they would receive guidance from the omniscient Stalin.
When Stalin died in 1953, these new and altered fairy tales were abandoned and are now considered 'pseudo-folklore' rather than genuine Russian folklore. The subject of repressed folklore and how the stories have changed is something I am really interested in and intend on revisiting in my research. I hope to write about this subject in my reflective journal and also hope to incorporate it in my final outcome somehow - I think the subject is extremely interesting and educational for people not familiar with Russian literature history and how literature can be repressed.
I think it's time for me to move on with my research and perhaps start looking at the tales themselves - by studying them in depth and learn more about the plots, characters, settings, lessons, and looking into each tale's different versions.
Written: 8th February 2014
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