Unraveling Rapunzel: Lessons from the Tower"

For the second year in a row, I entered The Folio Society's annual illustration contest. This year our assignment was to create an illustration from The Brothers' Grimm version of Rapunzel. Folio posted their long list yesterday with the top F15 entries and sadly, mine was not among them. On July 29th, they will announce the grand prize winner.

Since I plan to continue entering their contests in the future, I thought I would write a lessons learned essay to include my thoughts about the Brothers' Grimm version of the fairy tale, the process of creating my illustration and my take aways from the contest.

My background as an artist is in the fine arts rather than illustration and I find that I continue to struggle resisting the urge for complex and densely detailed entries. Both of our children are accomplished illustrators with post school training in graphic design and illustration. I am trying to encourage them to consider entering future contests since both are proficient at creating dynamic, eye catching illustrations.

The illustration to the right, although created in the early nineteen-hundreds looks like an illustration from a book (which it is) whereas my illustration looks like a painting. It also is far more complex an image owing mostly to the intensity with which I considered the story.

The Story

Reading the fairy tale as an adult rather than a child, I found it deeply disturbing on many levels and not just due to the cruel bargain Rapunzel's father makes with the witch to save his own life. Consider the basic facts:

1) Her father gives his wife's unborn child up to a witch.

2) The witch puts Rapunzel in a tower with no means of entry save for her long hair.

3) She is the very model of a kept woman. First by the witch Mother Gothel and second by an enterprising prince.

When the King's son hears the witch call out to Rapunzel to let down her golden hair he says to himself, "Since that is the ladder I will climb it, and seek my fortune." And the next day, as soon as it began to grow dusk, he went to the tower and cried,

"O Rapunzel, Rapunzel! Let down your hair."

And she let down her hair, and the King's son climbed up by it. Rapunzel was greatly terrified when she saw that a man had come in to her, for she had never seen one before; but the King's son began speaking so kindly to her, and told how her singing had entered into his heart, so that he could have no peace until he had seen her herself. Then Rapunzel forgot her terror, and when he asked her to take him for her husband, and she saw that he was young and beautiful, she thought to herself, "I certainly like him much better than old mother Gothel," and she put her hand into his hand.

After reading the story to prepare for the illustration, I was first struck by the words "and seek my fortune." Not a fortune of golden treasure but golden-haired booty. He no sooner climbs into the tower before asking "her to take him for her husband." That is the oldest trick in the book! And why does she agree? Because she likes him better than a witch! Talk about a low bar....

For those of you thinking, 'Now, John, don't you think your reading too much into the story?’ Consider what happens after the witch cuts Rapunzel's hair and takes her to a desert place far from the tower.

The prince who was blinded after climbing Rapunzel's hair and finding the witch instead, wanders desolate for many years. When he finally finds Rapunzel we read:

at last he came to the desert place where Rapunzel lived with her twin-children that she had borne, a boy and a girl.

It's right there in the story. They left all the lovemaking in the middle out of the story, but the twins were not a miracle virgin birth. Consequently, I cannot help but see the King's son as a man accustomed to getting his way who immediately takes advantage of Rapunzel's naivete.

Looking for a moral in the story? Where do I begin?

1) The story begins with a theft.

2) Her father then abandons his daughter.

3) She's isolated in a tower. Abusive parents and husbands always isolate the victims of their abuse. Everyone in her life takes advantage of her.

4) Is that why the prince is blinded? Is it some sort of medieval karma?

But not to worry, he gets a plaster in the end when Rapunzel weeps into his blinded eyes and he sees again.

My Process

After reading the story, I discussed my initial vision with my wife. Her immediate reaction was that everyone draws the prince climbing Rapunzel's hair. She suggested I do something less obvious like Rapunzel with her hair cut, weeping into the prince’s blind eyes.

Unfortunately, I decided to attempt my initial vision first and spent almost the entire time allotted to create the work for that vision alone.

I wanted to capture the nature of Rapunzel's entrapment in the illustration, but struggled to achieve that. The image below was my first attempt at Rapunzel:

Instead of portraying the prince's first visit to her bower, I portray Rapunzel in a submissive state of undress which I later decided had all the subtlety of hitting my thumb with a hammer. Because I liked the image, I developed two early almost complete illustrations which I ultimately rejected, mostly due to my dissatisfaction with my first two prince attempts, since both looked more bemused than rapacious.

After trashing my first three princes (too embarrassed to share them here), I finally struck on a sufficiently rapacious and commanding prince. I had graduated to a clothed version of Rapunzel but still using the face that I rendered the first time.

In the waning days before the contest deadline of May 23rd, I decided that my Rapunzel looked too grown up for the story and finally scrapped her. This was my 2nd Rapunzel. I rejected her for much the same reason, and much more quickly since time was running out.

Instead of continuing to play switch a face, which did not work all that well anyway, I completely changed not only her appearance but how the window framed her. I angled her face away from the prince and in the light rather than shadow like my earlier Rapunzel. Once I added freckles and the streak of a single tear I achieved the image I wanted.

You can now see the lost innocence in her expression rather than the world weariness in the former versions. Her hand presses against the wall to brace herself against the tugging of her hair. She is bathed in light, and the prince is cloaked by shadow. She now wears a German dirndl rather than a leather girdle. The last touch was adding Mother Gothel's cruel eyes superimposed on the darkness behind her as foreshadowing of what is coming.

The Contest

What are the judges looking for? Since none of the 15 illustrations selected show the traditional image of the prince climbing Rapunzel's golden hair, pretty sure they were not looking for what I offered.

And my wife's suggestion? Only one of the illustrations showed her weeping into the prince's eyes. The witch cruelly cutting her hair was far and away the most popular image in the selected illustrations and that idea never crossed my mind at all. I'm guessing one of those will win. If you are interested, check out the long list at the webpage below: