The Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales, Reimagined in Uncommonly Soulful Illustrations by Austrian Artist Lisbeth Zwerger [feedly]

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The Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales, Reimagined in Uncommonly Soulful Illustrations by Austrian Artist Lisbeth Zwerger
// Brain Pickings

"Once upon a time, when wishes could still come true…"

Few feats of storytelling have possessed the popular imagination more powerfully or enduringly than the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm. In the two centuries since the publication of the little-known original edition, penned by Jacob and Wilhelm when they were in their twenties, some of humanity's most celebrated artists and writers have retold and reimagined these bewitching tales, producing masterpieces like Maurice Sendak's illustrations a decade in the making, David Hockney's wonderfully weird vintage visual vignettes, Neil Gaiman's mesmeric retelling of Hansel and Gretel, and Shaun Tan's uncommonly haunting sculptural interpretation.

Among the most enrapturing visual reimaginings is one by the celebrated Austrian artist Lisbeth Zwerger. Having previously illustrated such beloved classics as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, and The Selfish Giant, she brings her singular vision to eleven of the Grimm stories in the absolutely gorgeous volume Tales from the Brothers Grimm: Selected and Illustrated by Lisbeth Zwerger (public library), translated by Anthea Bell.

The Frog King or Iron Henry

The Brave Little Taylor

The Children of Hamelin

Zwerger's distinctive pictorial language resonates deeply with the storytelling sensibility of the Brothers Grimm — there is a shared mastery of the interplay between darkness and light, subtlety and drama; a common quietude that bellows as the story breaches the surface of awareness and penetrates the psyche.

Hans My Hedgehog

The Children of Hamelin

The Children of Hamelin

The Wolf and the Seven Young Kids

The Wolf and the Seven Young Kids

The Brave Little Taylor

Hans My Hedgehog

Hans My Hedgehog

There is something particularly wonderful about the juxtaposition of the tales' unabashed strangeness, which lends itself more readily to stark black-and-white illustrations and literal visual narration, and Zwerger's soft watercolors, full of delicate abstraction. What emerges is a dialogue — an embrace, even — between the sharp outer edges of the stories and their interior sensitivity, bespeaking their dimensional enchantment.

The Bremen Town Musicians

The Bremen Town Musicians

The Bremen Town Musicians

The Bremen Town Musicians

Briar Rose

Briar Rose

The Poor Miller's Boy and the Little Cat

The Poor Miller's Boy and the Little Cat

Complement Zwerger's impossibly beautiful Tales from the Brothers Grimm with trailblazing female children's book artist Wanda Gág's early-twentieth-century illustrations, then revisit Zwerger's interpretations of Lewis Carroll, L. Frank Baum, and Oscar Wilde.

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