“Rosebud Looked so Beautiful He Stooped Down and Gave Her a Kiss”
This wonderful Art Nouveau style illustration is by the Danish artist, Kay Nielsen, from 1925. It is titled “Rosebud Looked so Beautiful He Stooped Down and Gave Her a Kiss”. The Rosebud fairy tale is also known by another and more common name, Sleeping Beauty. Nielsen made this piece during the Golden Age of Illustration.
In this piece, Nielsen is depicting the climax of the story when the prince is finally able to awaken Rosebud from the spell by giving her a true love kiss. The castle is covered in vines and flowers and the trees in the background loom densely. The sun is coming through the trees, providing little beams of light. The prince’s spear follows the same orientation as the light beams. These diagonal lines create movement in an otherwise still scene that draws the viewer’s eyes to the bottom left where the sleeping princess lies.
This illustration is one of many gorgeous pieces that Nielsen created for the first edition publication of Hansel and Gretel and other Stories by the Brothers Grimm. It was co-published in 1925 by Hodder and Stoughton in London and by the George H Doran Company in New York. In addition to Rosebud, this anthology includes Hansel and Gretel, The Fisherman and his Wife, Rapunzel, The Golden Goose, and my personal favorite as a kid, Rumpelstiltskin.
Nielsen’s works were extremely detailed, with often ornate Art Nouveau style borders. The original larger scale publications of the book included the ornamental borders that Nielsen integrated into his works. One critic’s review of the book in 1926 adroitly says, “There is no more beautiful holiday book than Kay Nielsen’s “Hansen and Gretel”, pale symbols melting into paler backgrounds: planes of action, successive stages of one idea bordering on expressionism …”.
“Rosebud Looked so Beautiful He Stooped Down and Gave Her a Kiss” is sold today online as poster art, cards, and in reproductions of the original publication.
For more on Kay Nielsen, please visit his short biography here.
You can find more artists to learn about here.
