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Visual Media Project for Rachel Gibbons

Page history last edited by Rachel Gibbons 10 years, 1 month ago

There are two fairy tales I'm considering is Cinderella or Hansel and Gretel.

 

One of the many things observed about this painting that was a major contradiction to the story we read in class was how insignificant Hansel and Gretel seem due to their size. They were two of the main characters in this story but in this picture you barely notice them. What does jump out of the painting, however, is the wicked and evil looking forest surrounding that quaint, inviting, and safe-looking home glowing warmly in the mist of menace.

 

Visual Analysis paper.docx

 

Rachel Gibbons

GER/FRE 2991

Professor Heiniger

10 February 2014

Visual Analysis of Hansel and Gretel

            Have you ever heard the saying a picture is worth a thousand words?  Not knowing who said it originally doesn’t detract from the truthfulness of this statement true.  A picture can convey a twenty different message to twenty different people depending on the different characteristics of the picture.  The book “The Annotated Classic Fairy Taleby Maria Tatar contains an illustration done in 1914 by Kay Nielsen titled “Hansel and Gretel” (Tatar, 50).  When looking at this illustration, it can make one wonder how significant were the two title characters to this fairy tale.  This paper will examine how Nielsen uses color tones, size, and both shapes and positions of the characters and landscape in this illustration to make one question if the real meaning behind the fairy tale was the possible danger to the family structure, especially the children, due to an influential, powerful and possibly harmful system or government. 

            In the 7th edition of the fairy tale “Hansel and Gretel”, Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm told the story of two siblings repeatedly abandoned in the woods by their father and his wife.  Their family was facing starvation and the wife, who in versions after the 4th edition was a stepmother, convinced the father to abandon the children in the woods so that the adults wouldn’t starve on two different occasions.  The first attempt was unsuccessful and the children found their way back home, due to Hansel’s wittiness.  However, the second attempt at abandonment was successful and the children got lost in the woods.  While they searched for the way back home, they came across a home made of bread and sweets.  They were so hungry that they started to eat off of it, which alerted the witch who lived in the house.  She enticed the children into her home with promises of safety.  Once inside her home, the witch provided the children a fine meal and warm beds.  The witch revealed herself as a child-eater with poor eyesight who planned on eating the two children.  Once again, after being in captivity for four weeks, the children escape with riches due to Hansel’s wittiness and Gretel’s killing of the witch.  The eventually found their way back home to their father who had been widowed in their absence.  With the aide of the stolen riches, the father and his two children lived a worry-free and happy life together (Tatar, 44-57). 

            Throughout this fairy tale, the threats to the main character’s lives were starvation, abandonment, a child-eating witch, and a stepmother.  In Nielsen’s illustration, the thing that stood out as a threat to Hansel and Gretel was the large, dark, and menacing woods which cocooned a warm welcoming cottage.  The artist used cold shades of grey and black shadows to give a feeling of menace to the forest in contrast to the warm shades of gold, orange, and green of the safe-looking cottage.  Hansel and Gretel had a glow to them similar to the glow of the cottage; however, the image of the two children wasn’t as detailed as the welcoming oasis before them.  In fact, this illustration made Hansel and Gretel look rather insignificant especially when one takes into consideration their size in comparison with the other images in this picture.

            Hansel and Gretel are two little barely there figures in this illustration.  The artist use of size also helped convey the feeling of danger to the children.  The trees of the dangerous forest spanned the entire height of the picture and took up roughly two-thirds of the illustration.  In comparison to the size of the woods, the warmly-lit cottage and its surrounding green trees were half their height and took up the other third of the picture for the most part.  When comparing the size of the children to the size of the dangerous forest, the sense of danger to the children was obvious.  The children were so small that there were tree branches from the woods larger than them.  You get the feeling that the children are at the mercy of the woods.  The trees looked like they would devour the small children if they caught up in the ensnaring branches of the scary woods. 

            Nielsen used positions and shapes very skillfully to further convince one of the dangers to the children.  The trees of the darker forest are curved towards the middle of the illustration an intimidating fashion.  The some of the branches are so entwined that they appeared to form a web waiting to trap someone or something.  Although the smaller, green trees are curved as well, they framed the house beautifully instead of imposing on its space in a threatening manner.  Hansel and Gretel had the least amount of curvature when compared to everything else in the picture.  Hansel and Gretel’s bodies were not curved either toward each other in a protective manner or away from one another in a rejecting manner.  They were barely more than stick figures and the only thing that made them appear as a team was the fact that they were holding hands.  The way the woods curved around the children came across as menacing and a danger to their lives.  This was another way that made the children appear to have been at the mercy of things larger and more powerful than them.

            In this illustration, two children are facing the uncertainty of being in this big world alone.  They are depending on each other to survive.  What would’ve been the reason for this?  Back in the day it wasn’t uncommon for poorer parents to become ill and die.  Due to this, the children could be sent to an orphanage where they’re barely being taken care of or to a relative’s house that are resentful of the burden that extra mouths to feed can cause.  What child wouldn’t see a mean aunt, nurse, or stepmother as a witch?  In today’s society, the breakdown of family can be attributed to divorce, crime both committed against and committed by, abuse, and death.  Once that breakdown occurs, the children, and the family for that matter, are at the mercy of a powerful government entity.  One of the government entities that is supposed to have the best interest of the child at heart is the Child Protective Services.  Although the CPC can help in certain circumstances, they have also been known to cause more damage than good in other situations.  There have been times when children are taken from a home for being disciplined, notice I didn’t say beaten, and placed in a foster care system where they are raped by either other foster children or the members of the foster family.  This caused more harm to the child than the parents.  In closing, Nielsen used color tones, size, and both shapes and positions of the characters and landscape in this illustration effectively to make one question if the real meaning behind the fairy tale.  Was the moral of the fairy tale not to enter in strangers houses, or was it a way to bring attention to the breakdown of the family structure and the hands of a powerful entity?  You decide.

 

Works Cited

 

Tatar, Maria. The Annotated Classic Fairy Tales. New York: W. W. Norton and Company, Inc., 2002. p. 44-57.

 

 

Comments (2)

Abigail Heiniger said

at 3:36 pm on Jan 26, 2014

Those are both great options for this project. Either fairy tale has a plethora of visual representations available to analyze.

Abigail Heiniger said

at 10:34 am on Feb 5, 2014

I think you've hit on something really significant here! Could Nielsen be illustrating the sort of larger social commentary invested in more recent "Hansel and Gretel" narratives (like "Once Upon A Time") - the children/families are victims of a larger (threatening) system?

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