Edmund Dulac illustration of The Little Mermaid

It's always a pleasure to put up illustrations, and especially ones that just impress me over and over. Ofcourse I have a distinct affection towards golden age illustrators and one of them being Edmund Dulac. His amongst my favorite, and illustrators like these nowadays aren't many, even though there are fabulous moderns day illustrators.

Edmund Dulac had that dreamlike effect in his colours and ofcourse, the way he sets out his visual composition in his paintings are riveting and so well balanced. This particular image is of The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen's FairyTales. Yes, there are other paintings and illustrations of other golden age illustrators that depicted mermaids, which are absolutly astonishing. So here you go, another Dulac illustration, enjoy!

Edmund Dulac painting of The Little Mermaid

Edmund Dulac illustrated classics such as Sinbad the Sailor, Arabian Nights, his Fairy Book and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. He was born in France specifically in Toulouse but made his success in London. Here's another illustration of The Little Mermaid of Hans Christian Andersen's fairy tales.

Edmund Dulac Golden Age illustrator of Fairy Tales

Yet another outstanding illustration by Edmund Dulac, also known as Edmond Dulac, a French Fairy Tale Book illustrator from the Golden Age of Illustration.

This one's probably from The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, but I'm not sure. His also did some illustrations for stories from Hans Christian Andersen Fairy Tales like The Little Mermaid.

What is a Fairy and Arthur Rackham Part 1

A Fairy is considered to be a mythological being, not just from Anglo-Saxon myths, Celtic , Nordic and Germanic. Although there's a strong connection to these, you must remember that story telling, or better known as folklore, is dynamic wasn't in the written form. So there have been many cultural exchanges over the centuries. What about arabic tales like the thousand and one nights?

Later the term fairy, around the 13th century, became part of Western culture and led to the so called fairy tales. In these kind of stories, the fairy is represented similarly to versions of the Elves of JRR Tolkien, but get them using a magic wand to perform spells and add some dragonfly wings on their backs and you have a modern day Fairy.

Unfortunately the fairy is usually portrayed as a woman of a tiny stature with wings. Take tinker Bell as an example. :) But you can also portray fairies with a normal stature too like Peter Pan, also in J. M. Barrie's classic fairy tale. Isn't this one absolutely cool, done in 1906 by Arthur RAckham?

Harry Clarke's illustration of Edgar Allan Poe

Edgar Allan Poe is known for his rather macabre and grim tales, and quite easily associated to Halloween. Yes, it's that time of the year! Edgar Allan Poe died in a mysterious way when he was about forty and clearly claims , not just the status as one of the most famed classic writers, but of the number one Gothic Romantic Literature. Horror stories!? His the man, but the cool thing is having a look at Harry Clarke's illustrations of Poe's work. Although he worked with stained glass, I think his best work are in his classic fairy tale illustrations.

Dark Fairies or Angels

Gustave Doré's work is more biblical but if we relate fairies with mythology we find an interesting link. The notion of a dark fairies is not far off from The Story of Redemption. The fall of the angels from the sky is thought to have brought all those supernatural beings upon earth. One of them being depicted here is Lucifer, or better known as The Fall of Lucifer, illustrated by Gustave Doré. The story goes as such, Lucifer was an exalted angel in heaven, and quite beloved as he was the next closest to God, after his son. Lucifer grew jealous of Christ not knowing why God was to have as his equal, or even what God had in store for his son. Lucifer then sought a rebellion and thus became Gods adversary also known as Satan. Claiming his freedom the War of Heaven came to be. The story is far more intricate, but as you can imagine, the heavens needed to be returned to its bliss. Those angels, dark angels or even as some would see it dark fairies come from that part of the story. And the Darkest Fairy of all Fell from the Heavens. Why not have this example as cute fairy tattoo. OK, a little bit too dark, but interesting isn't it?

Cute Fairy Tattoos or Evil Looking Folklore ones?

Hi Folks

It's been a little while, but I'm always back to put up a couple of new pics. Actually it wouldn't be a bad idea to use some of these beutiful fairy images to make a few cute fairy tattoos. Well, as a guy, there are some pretty mean looking fairy tattoos which would rival quite easily with some hard core ones. Yes, believe it or not. And why not!? I guess if your probably going to do something like that, just choose what suits you best. Obviously, some of those cute fairy tattoos that we refer to are those meant for the female gender. But you would be surprised to see some not so cute but outstanding fairy tattoos. And you'd also be surprised to see a lot of them on both Ladies & Gents. Cute Fairy Tattoos! Nahh, it's not for me. And then... Wow, I never thought their were so many amazing pictures of fairies that could actually go well as a tattoo. It actually is quite easy to find something fitting, if you think about it for a second. Fairy Tales come from folklore and the imagery in tattoos, back in the past, were very close related in most cultures. So to be rad, check out the history. That's not all... but I'll come back to this topic later.