The Illustrators

To understand the nature of the fairy tales and their deeper meanings, it is imperative to study the illustrations across the decades. Certain illustrators became known for their work for the Grimms and Andersen, showing off their style and uniqueness in interpreting the stories for which they drew. Notice how unique the styles are in the four illustrations to the left. Some illustrators chose the simplistic route, as in The Snow Queen and Hansel and Gretel, and others used intricate detail to supplement the story, as in Dear Mili and The Swineherd.

Walter Crane, for example, was known to give each story a headpiece and a tailpiece, to properly and recognizably introduce and conclude the tale for the reader. Other well known artists include George Cruikshank, Ludwig Grimm, Hermann Vogel, and Otto Ubbelohde.

Maurice Sendak in particular spent years researching for his drawings for the Grimm's. He even traveled to Germany to visit the towns in which the tales were written to get a better grasp for their true origins. He was intent on presenting the best possible moment of the stories to get the reader to look beyond the traditional fairy tale themes. His goal was "catching that moment when the tension between storyline and emotion is at its greatest, so that the person reading is in for a surprise if he thinks it's just a simple-minded fairy tale."

Sendak lost many Polish family members in the Holocaust, which could signify a connection to the dark, complicated illustrations he creates. In his drawings for the Grimm's, he was also greatly influenced by Durer's Little Passion painting. He wanted to illustrate the unraveling of the deep psychological dramas in the tales. This could explain why there were so many pictures of women , as they were the center of controversy and pain in the tales. He truly desired to reveal the "pure essence of life" that the Grimm's were trying to emulate themselves.

This excerpt to the left epitomizes Sendak’s ambitions in his drawings for the Grimm tales, which are overwhelmingly of women and their struggles. Sendek, best known for his illustrations in Where the Wild Things Are, was hired to illustrate a set of twenty-seven Grimm’s Fairy Tales in the 1960’s. When criticized for his overly scary illustrations, his response was “Parents shouldn’t assume children are made out of sugar candy and will break and collapse instantly. Kids don’t. We do.”