Video: What the first little mermaid Ariel looked like, and why its author died in poverty, although he worked for Disney
2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55
Many artists know how to illustrate fairy tales, but few can turn each illustration into a separate fairy tale, which can be viewed endlessly, as if you were bewitched. One of these wizards of the brush was the Danish Kai Rasmus Nielsen. A child who happened to look at his princesses, heroes, trolls and sorceresses with his mother in the evening forever retains the feeling of touching a fairy tale.
Probably, little Kai was promised a career in the theater, because his mother Oda was an actress, and his father Martinus was a director. The Nielsen family lived in Copenhagen, the capital of Denmark; at the end of the nineteenth century, Denmark, like all of Europe, adored theaters, so the Nielsen's needs were not known. Moreover, the mother shone on the stage not only with her husband at the Dagmar Theater, but also at the Royal Danish Theater. But Kai chose to become an artist. As a youth, he went to Paris to study first at the Julian Academy (the same where he studied Russian artist Maria Bashkirtseva), then at the Accademia Colarossi.
After France, Nielsen went to England, the homeland of Pre-Raphaelite artists. There he first received an order to illustrate fairy tales. 24 color and 15 black-and-white drawings by Nielsen decorated the book “Powder and crinoline. Fairy Tales Retold by Sir Arthur Qwilleran-Kuch. Nielsen's pictures are typical Art Nouveau drawings, they are sweet and sophisticated, imbued with the spirit of 1913.
In the same year, the Christmas edition of the Illustrated London News published Nielsen's illustrations for Charles Perrault's fairy tales: Sleeping Beauty, Puss in Boots, Cinderella and Bluebeard.
In 1914, Nielsen illustrated a collection of Norwegian folk tales "East of the Sun and West of the Moon". Fairy tales inspire him in earnest, the harsh beauty of the Scandinavian North appears through the pan-European Art Nouveau. The book was published in a circulation of 500 copies, in a gold-embossed cover, with 25 color and 21 black and white drawings. At auctions, surviving copies start at $ 8,000.
In the same year, he creates three illustrations for the story about the life of Jeanne d'Arc, which will be published much later, in 1920. In the meantime, the artist is studying from local colleagues a new drawing technique, tempera.
In 1917, Nielsen visited the United States with his own exhibition of drawings, after which he finally returned to his homeland. In Copenhagen, he is working on the stage design for the Royal Danish Theater and, in parallel, on illustrations for the new translation of 1000 and 1 Nights. All this - against the backdrop of the First World War tearing Europe apart.
Bye Maria Curie She traveled along the front line, teaching military doctors to use a mobile X-ray machine to examine the wounded, the Danes remained neutral - Nielsen's peace was not disturbed in any way. Illustrations for "1000 and 1 Nights" were published only after the death of the artist. Probably, for the beginning of the twentieth century, they turned out to be too frivolous to see the light: they were full of naked peri.
In 1924, Nielsen took up the illustrations of the fairy tales of the most famous Danish writer, Hans Christian Andersen. A year later, he creates drawings for the next edition of the Brothers Grimm fairy tales. Then the artist takes up the book of the British woman Romer Wilson - a collection of fairy tales from the peoples of the world. Slavic tales are also there. The Russian reader may be greatly surprised by Nielsen's illustrations - the artist had never been to the Slavic countries and drew costumes and characters very freely.
Meanwhile, a magical meeting took place in his life. Kai marries a girl named Ulla, a sweet fashionista from a wealthy Danish family, with whom she will live her entire life until death separates them. She may have served as a model for some of his heroines.
In 1939, Nielsen dramatically changes his career. He moves with his family to California to work for Hollywood. The glory of theaters is a thing of the past, the future belongs to films. He collaborates with Walt Disney himself, participating in the creation of the musical animated film Fantasy. He also creates concept art for many Disney works, including, of course, the cartoon based on Andersen's fairy tales - which, alas, never saw the light of day. Nevertheless, Nielsen's concept art lay in the archives of the studio and came in handy when working on the cartoon about Ariel, released in 1989. And Nielsen ended his collaboration with Disney in 1941 and returned home.
With the outbreak of World War II, the world has changed a lot. Art Nouveau has lost its charm in the eyes of most of humanity. Children were no longer interested in fairy tales, they wanted tales of war and victory. Nielsen went out of style. He left for Los Angeles and spent the rest of his life in poverty, painting the walls of schools and churches.
Kai died in 1957, having lived a fairly long life - 71 years. Ulla survived him by only a year. It was only over time that the world realized that Kai Nielsen, along with Jon Bauer and Karl Olof Larsson, is one of the most fascinating artists in Scandinavia.
And the modern Brazilian artist creates magical applique illustrations based on cartoons … It turns out just fine!
Recommended:
Why Elizabeth I didn't like the first flush toilet, although the instructions amused
Up to eight or ten years it often seems that things that make life easier have always existed. After ten, something clicks in your head, and almost everything that you use in everyday life every day - if it is more complicated than a saucepan - you think that it was invented recently. More often than not, both are misconceptions. Take, for example, a flush toilet
What is the subtext of the largest oil painting and why colleagues disliked its author: "Paradise" by Tintoretto
Tintoretto is one of the best masters of the Late Renaissance, along with Veronese and Titian. He is distinguished from his colleagues by the highest speed of work, as well as sparkling and spiritualistic talent. Why did the artists of Venice dislike him, and what is the implication of Paradise, the largest oil painting in the world?
Literary heroes that readers fell in love with, although the author did not want it
It is known that the creators of the beloved series "Well, wait!" they tried very hard to make the bunny a purely positive hero, and they gave the wolf many outrageous features. But, despite this, at the very first views, it turned out that the children's audience considers a poorly educated bully with a bunch of shortcomings to be a much more interesting character. Similar situations sometimes arise in the literature. There are several famous heroes that the authors were going to make negative, but the sympathy of the audience
A century-long life: how the brilliant painter Titian Vecellio worked, loved and died
Titian Vecellio lived for almost a century in the amazing Renaissance, which gave the world the greatest artists. After all, it was during these years that Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael were born, created and died. And by the end of this legendary era, only Titian "reigned" - a brilliant master of the brush, "who managed to create almost as much as all the great Italians of his time put together"
The glitter of diamonds and the poverty of its miners: how jewels fall from dirty mines to shop windows
Usually, passing by the windows of jewelry stores, we involuntarily stop, fascinated by the glitter of precious diamonds. Admiring all this splendor, no one will be able to imagine how many human souls died before these treasures became an ornament on someone's neck or finger