Fairy Tale Bionics

In order for an illustrator to give life to a picture they must know how to use artistic detail to give it the richness it needs. In fairy tales, old and new, these same details were necessary to give the tales the life it needed to become alive. Looking at th

No matter what the illustration was and what it was suppose to represent, most of all the pictures were in black and white. When examining these illustrations, it could be hard to figure out the real reason for why these pictures are only two colors. Though it can be found when exploring a picture of two griffins upon a large castle in “Jack the Giant-Killer” (Jacobs 110). The reason for this is the dull black and white coloring that makes you visualize what you have read as descriptions in the fairy tale. This helps the reader open up the imagination that is necessary to actually fully understand the morals and messages intended to be learned. If the pictures were full of color then the reader may only catch a glimpse of what should have been a closely examined depiction of an important scene. Not only does this open up the imagination but this black and white color scheme makes it so the shadowing, especially in characters, appears to be more dramatic. The added focus on shadowing gives the reader the advantage of seeing intricate detail that is used to give the characters their life. With today’s younger audience preferring movies with color, Disney uses attractive bright colors to appeal to these movie goers. Within the movies, it seems as if the scenes are much more complex and full of life while in the fairy tales they appear to be dull and simple. The truth lies in how deep you look into these illustrations to find out how each detail and design could take up to a million words to describe. At first glance, the fairy tale illustrations might not be too attractive or attention thirsty but they still have the potential to expand the imagination of many people. The catch is that the reader must take the time and effort to examine these illustrations that were drawn to be observed closely.

Though illustrations can give life to the actual characters it can give them even more than that, personality. Fairy tales usually don’t have many characters and usually stick to them the whole story, meaning they need to be remembered by their specific personality. The artists have to depict the characters in such a manner that they show either expressions or actions that can sum up a part of their personality. Once these illustrations have been seen by the reader they then recognize that character with that picture every other time the character is introduced again. When those illustrations are drawn to give off expressions they usually tend to be exactly like their personality so that every time the reader thinks back and refers to that picture they will see the character’s actual personality. This is important since there are few characters in each tale that are usually dynamic in personality and have opposite traits. Conflicts often occur within the tales because of the reason that opposites attract and cause problems for each other. In each level of the conflict and story the character’s expressions are shown that can be different but still depict the personality of each p

Some topics in this essay:
Grimm’s Grimmest, Giant-Killer” Jacobs, Brothers Grimm, Williams Jr, Grimm Brothers, Snow White, John Batten, Wilhelm Grimm, fairy tales, Jacobs Batten, Richard Chase, fairy tale, artistic detail, illustrations drawn, black white, reading fairy tales, reader idea, illustrators skills, tale usually, illustrations people, detail reader, create fairy tale, fairy tales usually, fairy tale illustrations,