Myths, Legends, and Fairy Tales | Lecture with Jack Zipes

tonight's talk is presented in conversation with our exhibition the wonderful world before Disney inspired by the collection of fairy tale theme postcards from our speaker for the evening professor Jack sipes the exhibition features a selection of these fairytale postcards from 1890s to the 1930s a period when millions of postcards of all kind were sold every year in Europe and North America before I introduced professor Zipes I have a few announcements I'd like to begin tonight's event by stating that the Weisman Art Museum acknowledges the Dakota peoples on whose land we are on we thank them and their relatives for their care of the land and we recognize or continuing connection to the land waters and community we pay our respects to them and their culture both past and present this activity is made possible in part by the voters of Minnesota through a Minnesota State Arts Board operating grant thanks the legislative appropriation from the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and a grant from the Wells Fargo foundation of Minnesota directly following the talk we're gonna open up the floor to you all for a short Q&A with Professor Zipes we are also taping this evening so we ask that you wait until the microphone gets to you we really appreciate that and then after the Q&A there will be a book signing and a reception several of Jack's titles are available in the WAM shop as well as post card sets the galleries will also be open until 9 p.m. this evening and we invite you to take a look and tomorrow we'll be in touch with you all with an online survey so please take a moment to give us your feedback and it helps us strengthen and design programs at interest in serve you now I would like to introduce professor Jack sipes jack sipes is a professor emeritus of German and comparative literature at the University of Minnesota in addition to his scholarly work he's an active storyteller in public schools and has worked with children's theaters in Europe and the United States among his many awards are at John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship the International Brothers Grimm award the mythopoeic scholarship award for myth and fantasy a lever home fellowship from Anglia Ruskin University the judith case cooper research award from the american alliance for theater and education x' 2014 judith case cooper honorary research award some of his recent publications include The Sorcerer's Apprentice an anthology of magical tales 2017 tales of Wonder retelling fairy tales through poster guard pictures 2017 fearless Ivan and his faithful horse double hump 2018 and smack bam the art of governing men the political fairy tales of Ed wha look cool EA 2018 he is currently working out a book of tales by Charles Godfrey Leland please join me in welcoming professor Jack sides to the stage thank you thank you very much I want to take this time to thank the Weisman Art Museum for undertaking this exhibit and there are so many staff members who helped make this event and also sorted over 3000 fairytale postcards for the past year or so it's been a long journey and I'm very pleased that it's turned out as well as it has so ladies and gentlemen I've been summoned here to tell you about the wonderful world of fairy tale postcards how it originated and why this art is so diverse and what it reveals about aural and literary fairy tales and about ourselves I'll speak for about 30 minutes and then spend another 20 minutes showing showing you numerous postcards some of which are included in the exhibit and some which are still in my possession or at the Russian Museum of Art here in many Minneapolis so once upon a time that is approximately 1944 when the famous scientist Albert Einstein was teaching at Princeton University a tiny old woman approached him as he was walking home after he had just taught a course she was slepping about seven who was dragging his feet mr. Einstein she called out in a strong Central European accent mr. Einstein stopped your tracks and helped me Einstein was taken aback he didn't know what to do except to stop how can I help you he responded with a smile as he took out a pipe you shouldn't smoke it will kill you the old woman said again Einstein was taking her back and he put away his pipe is that better much better said the old woman as she drew her timid grandson toward unsane jakey jakey stop fiddling and listen to this great man now she turned her attention back to Einstein me Stein Stein I want you should tell jakey here my grandson what he must do to become educated like you and and I don't want him to be a great scientist Einstein didn't hesitate with a reply fairytales he should read fairytales all the way the woman replied but what then what should he read after that more fairytales Einstein stated bluntly but then she grabbed hold of jakey's hand and began dragging him through the park again suddenly she stopped you heard jakey you heard she pointed her finger at the frightened boy you heard what the great man said read fairytales do what the man said o God help you and she wished her grandson away now needless to say this is not a fairy tale this is a semi true story what folklore is called a tall story not really even as tall story well I've lived under Einstein's spell ever since my momentous encounter with the great man in 1945 or perhaps one could call the spell of my grandmother's curse weather spell or curse I can't recall not ever imbibing fairytales they are in my blood ever since my grandmother traumatized me I have constantly collected fairy tales read them written them studied them and even live them most of all I have collected fairy tale postcards for over 50 years and have well over 3500 including fairy tale stamps in my collection my wife thinks that I'm a fairy tale postcard junkie for years I've spent a good deal of my research time auctions flea markets postcard shows garbage dumps and garbage sales and in secondhand bookstores musty libraries bookstores movie theaters cellars attics and museums my daughter who has tolerated my tale telling and fairy tale postcard as obsession ever since she was born she has offered to ship me off and pay for a fairy tale detoxication program run by rational stringent down-to-earth social workers lately however she has concluded that I'm helpless and hopeless to tell you the truth I may indeed be hopeless but I'm not hopeless I think it is hope in fairy tales that has driven me throughout my life and perhaps it was hope that drove Einstein there's something peculiar about fairy tales the best of fairy tales that propels me and I think most human beings absorb them as if they were vital food and vital for survival we simply can't do without them it's as if we were predisposed to lead our lives according to the spells and curses of fairy tales in my own case I have constantly learned about the complexities of life through fairy tales and especially through buried treasures this brings me back to talk about the importance of fairy tale postcards that have been produced in the millions and yet have been ignored to a large extent by collectors and scholars I don't mean to exaggerate the neglect but quite clearly very few collectors and scholars have written about the history of fairy tale postcards and most people who buy the cards are not aware of why they are drawn to fairy tale postcards as a narrative as a narrative metaphor or metaphorical pattern a fairy tale in my opinion like other short narratives such as the anecdotes jokes legends myths warning tales animal tales and so on stems from historically conditioned lived experience that fosters a reaction in our brains and this experience is articulated through symbols that endow it with significance fairy tales are revelant because they pass on information vital for the adaptation of humans to changing environments sometimes they do this through the images on tiny postcards I don't want to privilege the fairy tale or more precisely the oral wonder tell as the only type of narrative or the best means by which we communicate our experiences and learn from one another but it does seem to me that we are predisposed to the fairy tale whether in a book or on a postcard because it tends to offer a metaphor metaphorical means through which we can gain distance from our experiences sort them out and articulate or enunciate their significance for us and for other people in our environment nobody and that means not even I lives their lives by fairy tales over the hundreds of years they have come to form a linguistic type genre a means by which we seek to understand and contend with our environment to find a place to find our place in it there are many types John Roos and means of narration our predilection for certain fairy tales reveals something about ourselves and our cultures every family and society in the world have developed types genres and communicative means that produce cultural patterns and enable people to identify themselves and grasp the world around them sometimes these communicative means or media have contributed to the formation of spectacles and illusions that prevent us from understanding our empirical experiences I prefer however to think that fairytale postcards as startling Illustrated memes have flown and continued to fly magically through the air to enlighten us and give us pleasure just one look at the unique images printed on the postcards in this exhibit and in my books will give you an idea of how much we Revere and continue to revere fairy tales now here's just a short history about fiction fairy tale picture postcards the development of picture postcards has a long and fascinating history that led to the golden age between 1895 and 1919 what millions of postcards were sold every year in Europe and North America certain socio-economic factors must be considered to understand why a craze a real craze for pictorial postcards erupted at the beginning of the 20th century the most important are of course the technological improvement of printing which included the publication of books chat box broadsides illustrations cartoons and envelopes for for writing and the cooperation of governmental postal systems which controlled and mediated the demand for communication in addition the rise of the lower in middle classes the growth of literacy in the 19th century and the expansion of travel and tourism were significant developments that created conditions favorable for the use of a small inexpensive card that allowed for brief communication among relatives and friends all the gladder social and cultural developments occurred mainly toward the end of the 19th century but one can actually trace the origins of pictorial postcards to the production of playing cards in the 15th century and and to embroidered an embossed writing paper and envelopes in the 18th and 19th centuries along with small illustrated chap books and richly illustrated board sites the big breakthrough for the postcard came in Austria when the government officially approved the postcard in 1869 as an authorized means of communication after more than three million postcards were sold in the austro-hungarian Empire in the first four months there was no stopping other countries such as Switzerland and England and most of the other European countries as well as the United States and Canada to authorize penny post combs at first experiments with color and pictures was modest during the 1880s postcards were often printed with little views in a corner but by the 1890s thanks to the improved technical technology of printing there was a boom in color postcards an expansion of topics depicted on the postcards for instance in addition to photographs and paintings of local and urban settings settings for greeting cards the private postcard companies and many publishing houses began producing postcards to represent exhibitions military figures publishing patriotic themes vacation spots local cities and towns propaganda animals transportation trains in and ships advertisements nursery nursery rhymes jokes pornography snow and yes fairytales indeed there was literally a pictorial postcard craze which included fairy tales by the beginning of the 20th century because the postcards were inexpensive and because more and more people were traveling and wanted to keep contact with friends and relatives in addition the pace of work was increasing so rapidly that people did not have as much time as they used to have to write letters consequently postcards were ideal especially if they were unusual unique informative and exotic the messages tended to be affectionate and sparked memories however it was not just the purchasing and sending of postcards that increased but also a collecting craze so that clubs and societies were established and the members of these societies began holding meetings organized shows and exchanged cards amongst themselves also amongst members of postcard clubs in other countries in Minneapolis yes in Minneapolis there was a notable club called the Twin Cities postcard club which holds monthly meetings and organizes two great national shows a year and I try to attend those all the time undoubtedly the most famous fairytale postcards in the world are ones depicting scenes from the tales of Charles Perrault and the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen but they were only the tip of the iceberg the early fairytale post cards included charming illustrations of fairies dwarfs and animals and many were based on other well-known fairytale writers such as Alice in Wonderland Peter Pan the Arabian Nights the Pied Piper Rip Van Winkle and a variety of Russian folk tales from 1900 to the beginning of the 21st century fairytale postcards have flourished largely in Europe the United Kingdom and the United States in different formats and designs fairytale postcards also appeared in Japan and China often they were produced in a series of six or twelve cards to retell a particular tail through colorful images or they were created in a series of six different tales written by Charles Perrault and illuminated by a French photographer or artists most of the fairytale postcards produced during the early period were done by anonymous photographers and artists the different realistic photographic series in France and Germany frequently featured children as the protagonists in the stories the intention by publishers was obviously to make the stories more appealing by charming by portraying charming children in Germany a group of painters called the Blanca mala which included Georg Newberg or takubo pal high ghetto gas body gingka and Oscar Hef would contributed oil paintings to a photo company in Stuttgart that converted their works in two sets of postcards in the 1910s and 1920s characteristic in the works of all these painters is their tendency toward folk realism and naturalistic depiction of villages farms and forests the focus was mainly on tales published by the Brothers Grimm in contrast the fairy tale postcards in England France and Italy offered different views on the Grimm's tales while also focusing on their own national and cultural forms the early illustrate is a fairy tale postcards in England were mainly women such as Millicent Sowerby and Margaret Courant their Styles were focused on florid and charming scenes that displayed fairies and dwarves the artists rarely rarely retold particular fairy tales but suggested new ones by envisioning fairy lands that evoked a more Placid world than England which was becoming more industrialized and stressful so furries were introduced in numerous exotic postcards and reinforced Peter Pan's plea in JM Barrie's 1904 play that everyone should believe in fairies otherwise what would happen Tinkerbell would ah hey yes they're very important to know that on the other hand illustrators shut such as Charles folkert tended to emphasize the ridiculous and disturbing features of fairy tales Warrick gobo had a fondness for the mysterious in fairy tales that he displayed in his illustrations published in various books during the first half of the 20th century almost all these artists illustrated books for children but one should not think that most of the fairy tale postcards were intended for children the overwhelming number of post cards were retold fairy tales for adults and the portrayal of children was designed often to stimulate a nostalgia for childhood and innocent times retelling through images appealed to the sentimentalism of the buyers and viewers in most countries children were often photographed acting and playing different roles in classical fairy tales they were not the purchases and senders of the postcards and certainly not after 1933 there was somewhat of a hiatus in the publication of fairy tale postcards during the 1930s due to the rise of fascism in Germany Italy in Spain and due to world war ii Russia had already more or less banned fairy tale postcards because fairy tales were associated with a bourgeois lifestyle in the United States the fairy tale postcards tended to concern local legends and tell such as Paul Bunyan Rip Van Winkle and of course the Disney fairy tale films were often accompanied by postcards incidentally Disney the Disney fairy tale postcards were popular in Europe and some original ones such as the short animated film Little Red Riding Hood and the big wolf big bad wolf were published French German and Italian after 1945 when correspondence and communication between European and American countries improved the fairy tale postcard flourished once again but the production of hundreds of thousands of fairy tale postcards common during the Golden Age could not be replicated because the purchase and mailing of postcards gradually became more expensive and because there were now other competing modalities used by publishers to enhance the popularity of the genre in general fairytale postcards however were still popular as art postcards and continued to be used on special occasions such as the celebrations of fairy tale authors in libraries such as the British Library while many publishers began reproducing fairy tale post fairy tale postcards as reprints in post-world War two Europe and North America there was one interesting exception in Eastern Europe as I've already mentioned in 1917 the fairy tale postcard in Russia had become more or less banned because it was considered to bushwah consequently fairy tale postcards were rarely rarely produced in Eastern Europe from 1917 to 1945 by the 1950s due to Stalin's death in 1954 however fairy tale postcards became popular again in the Soviet Union because governments permitted their publication indeed they were produced with exceptional artwork some of the fascinating Slovak postcards created from the 1950s through the beginning of the 20th century 21st century included unusual adaptations of tales by ETA Hoffmann Hans Christian Andersen Khiladi Gianni Rodari and of course petrol and the Brothers Grimm in addition famous Russian Ukrainian Romanian and Bulgarian folk and fairy tales were very post very popular they were all we told through pictorial postcards with unusual imaginative Gustov in the 21st century it is unclear what the future holds for fairy tale postcards or postcards in general given the rise of the cost of mailing the former penny postcard is no longer a cheap and fast way to send messages and given different modes of communication through the social media of the telephone internet and telegraph the postcard has lost its primary function as an effective means of quick greeting and content if it has a function today it is as nostalgic ephemera the fairytale postcard recalls as it always has another realm and time was suggesting that the joys and struggles of past times have never changed so I want to just conclude now to say to make a few remarks about the function of the fairytale postcard and then I'm going to turn to show some of the images fairytale postcards were and are instrumental in fostering visual re present presentations and interpretations of well-known classical folk and fairy tales and the cards can be considered to act like memes that spread themselves as viruses throughout the 20th century and also at the beginning of the 21st century indeed light memes fairy tale the fairy tale postcards have crossed borders and continued to cross borders throughout the world traveling through air and on ground to make the tales better and more no postcards offered and still offer a visual impression of a particular tale that is to be appreciated by the receiver of course senders of fairy tale postcards write and wrote explicit messages that express their attachment to the fairy tale or simply implied a message through the pictured fairy tale whatever the case may be the sender's choice to send a fairy tale postcard contributed to the relevance of the fairy tale genre moreover we must take into consideration that many postcards in general were published primarily for collectors who did not send them but gathered them because they had a passionate appreciation for the pictorial representative what is fascinating in the production of fairy tale postcards is that they present a new optic or perspective about the stories they demand that we visually review the different ways of fairy tale can be represented through art whether it be an oil painting a watercolor a photograph an ink drawing a silhouette and so on it is fascinating to see key scenes of fairy tale fairy tales replicated in such different fashions that they provoke purchases and receivers of the postcards to relive relive the tales and we think them the fairy tale is not just about once upon a time it is as fairy tale as a fairy tale post and a particular if not peculiar expression of a time often created by talented artists and innovative publishing companies the sharing of a fairytale postcard between sender and receiver and the preservation of fairytale postcards by collectors our endeavours to keep the fairy tales alive psychologically it is difficult to determine exactly exactly what drives people to engage with fairy tale postcodes I've postulated that we tend to live our lives through fairy tales without realizing how much a role they play in our daily lives through different modalities and the fairy tale postcard is another key example of how we have envisioned and continue to envision our lives through fairy tales in this regard fairy tale postcards in the Western world of binding they have always flown and crossed borders and continued to cross borders they actually deny nationalistic tendencies because the images on the cards are from other worlds and unknown countries they animate us to see the tales anew and through their pictures we understand how storytelling vitalizes our lives and provides a bit of hope that our lives might end happily as most fairy tales do now we come to the fun part so I've tried to divide the I'm going to show close to if we have time yes I'm going to show close to a hundred ten of images I'll try not to go too fast but I do have some printed text here that will explain what different sections are like so this was a postcard a huge postcard that was take was produced in 2004 I think there was some type of celebration about Little Red Riding Hood and this postcard was was made it gives you an idea to a certain extent of the encounters what I'm focus on is the encounter of the wolf with Little Red Riding Hood in this first series of images that are going to send to you and what I want you to think about as you look at these images to what extent does Little Red Riding is Little Red Riding Hood really so little number one and is a Little Red Riding Hood flirting with the wolf do they want to set up an assignation somewhere Oh is she dumb is she stupid what what strikes you about Little Red Riding Hood there and of course the wolf is far from being a gentleman so the images are very fascinating and we shall I went backwards I'm sorry if you don't mind should I read this aloud No my wife is shaking her head I like the last three or four lines though I'd like to read them what would Freud or Jung say about all this indeed what would women writers say about the sexist Freud and Jung not to mention the plagiarist mu no Bettelheim now that contemporary versions reflect a more aggressive young woman who takes destiny in her own hands okay I had to say that so now I told you what I'm going to do is show you three different versions and sets that took place now this is the French version of and most of you probably don't recall that in Pireaus version the wolf eats her up at the end busta that's it it's over like that she was dumb enough to invite him into her parlor so to speak and therefore she gets eaten up as you will see showing the way and this is you know typical this is a very interesting 1900s set and photographs were colored and that's the end okay okay now we will turn to the Brothers Grimm okay who a little let us say more kindly okay and this is why Otto kuba who was one of the pink painters who did painted wooded scenes in near Stuttgart and Munich group of painters and they did these really traditional interpretations notice the size of the wolf no wolf is that tall and again she doesn't seem to be afraid of him she goes off to pick flowers that because this is the a6 card version little striptease going on here and of course there's the wolf at the end of this so you get a sense of you know different cultures different times different interpretations of the of the Grimm's tale and then one final one is a I not too sure about the dates but it's from this is from kohlberg Germany and I think it's in from the 1960s and you see a much more aggressive or let us say assertive young woman the wolf again is very tall it's a small set there's a hero that's the end of the story this is a very short but the I think the artwork here is very very interesting in particular the portray portrayal of the the hunter or the so again I won't read this to you okay so now I'm just going to show you some single cards that from different periods this is a German one from approximately 1895 and in those days it's interesting there was nothing you couldn't put anything on the back you couldn't write on the back the just the address was there and so people would take right there there little messages on the front of the of the postcard this I love this is of course French you again you see her sort of flirting and not that she's definitely not afraid of the wolf and this is German again look at the size of the wolf it's very unusual why I'm still perplexed it's practically through every all that fairytales the wolf is huge this is again another German one German these are all early that's Swedish by the way since most of you will probably have some Swedish blood in you you know you're big you know and the women are big and strong here that's Swedish also that's Swiss and American again there's some type of flirting that's going on and many of these stairs whether it's conscious or unconscious it's difficult to say this of course is typical that's again the typical ending American French this is very fascinating a lot of patriotic postcards that were produced in the unite from about 1913 to 1919 and this is a French postcard which portrays Germany as a vicious wolf this is Russian again in French is always very much more sexual than any of the other postcards or vicious American Italian of course it's another Italian version of these are contemporary by the way all of these postcards and the odd work becomes a little more intricate in some of the postcards that's a very interesting one America so we now see some interesting postcards so this this is a three three postcard set from Switzerland I won't comment on this one these are all contemporary that's Spanish by the way I didn't put that up there this is also very recent from German from Germany of obviously those are the Brothers Grimm this is actually Canadian this is an older an older postcode but somewhat provocative it's American I love this one so okay now one of the exciting things for me has been in collecting it wasn't really until I retired from the University in 2008 when my wife told me it's either you could stay here or the postcards one or the other and it was at that time I began looking at my collection in a more scholarly and I had the time to do this that I really began collecting and I discovered enormous amount of material that led me to publish this book fearless Ivan and his faithful horse double hum which is based on a Russian writers 1830 poem long long poem so I've been using the materials from the postcards to actually write books to do more research because I find new authors new imagers and so on so I've got about five or ten books I'm working on using the images from from the postcards so the humpbacked horse is the one that the images are based on the actual poem and these are images that also influenced me and some of the images are in the book that I recently published with the University of Minnesota press so they were about I think six to eight cards here and up above is Ivan who's always considered foolish or dumb he really doesn't know anything and his brothers are sort of laughing at him but he doesn't care but then he manages to tame this amazing mayor and she then gives him two or two stallions and a humpbacked horse I'm telling you not my version but the version that is in this poem and then he goes he see the stallions there and his brothers are there as well and he goes and the tyrannical saw wants the horses takes the horses and he becomes a stable boy and he is obliged to go on three trips and journeys two three tasks to help the the Tsar who wants to marry a princess and so he has to go with flying through the air on the humpback horse this is not double hump this is just so humpbacked horse and they I I love this one the pony sort of resembles my poodle and but you shouldn't you see the great affection between the two of them which I've also tried to replicate and they have to go and find a ring that's at the bottom of an ocean and then they also have to help away help who then gives them a ring that the princess wants and the princess cons him into trying to become younger if he will jump into this boiling milk and he is killed and in the end but it's interesting in the last postcard in the series doesn't reflect this but in the end of of year shoves poem Ivan is also transformed into young very handsome man and they they marry but in this one the ending is surprising he just goes back delivering his old life and sleeps a long time and there he has his favorite how product was with them so it's a very interesting interpretation and this is the book that I took from that and many other many other stories I combined that and that that by the way is an oral that's called Prince Ivan and the gray wolf and that's part of the oral tradition which when and also went into the the poem that Yishuv wrote now this is based on a legend in vivo Dom is a small town or area in the South southern southern part of France and in the I believe it was the 15th century or 16th century there were wolves in Europe and because and the wolves generally were not vicious however when they were starving sometimes they would come to towns and they would be frightened people and so on and in this area women were attacked and nobody knew who did the attacking it was some sort of a monster and they in their imagination it with the wolves the wolves were were victimized actually because they were all slaughtered in this area and throughout France Europe I don't know whether any of you most of you know this but by the 17th or 18th century there were no wolves in Europe because they were all slaughtered to a certain extent because of this legend and this is again one of the stories of reworking in a different way so I just want to show you some other images from postcards that if you go to this area they will be you'll find these postcards notice nobody has a real idea of who the real nobody ever found out who was really it could have been men just killing women all the time but the postcodes have a really interesting the Americans never get it right there's a good one that's a statue right in the town and this is a hunt the don't know whether you can decipher the hunting of the beast here now the other fascinating I mentioned before that the best postcards fairytale postcards in my opinion since approximately nineteen the 1960s our postcards being produced in Russia the Ukraine Estonia you name it remarkable up to the present day so and quite often some of the really great sets our sets that are based on sort of Italian of the genre darling the famous children's book author in Italy or the based on el frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz or they're based on Xavier Hoffman's tells and so on and their own folk and fairy tales so but I wanted to show you this really unusual set of tales that reflect their version a very utopian version of a different version of el frank baum because they essentially attack capitalism in these images it's difficult to make out that I just want to show you how the artwork and the stories is fascinating they also made a film out of this in 1973 that's amazing shot here and that's the final they're celebrating and the final scene there was some other postcards also but I I do time now this is from the 1845 the humpback Pony from Russia that stem from an again an oral tradition was about eighteen thirty four so Petofi who was a great here became a great hero in Hungary everybody who grows up in Hungary no knows who Sandow Petofi is and he wrote this amazing story about a young man who goes off to fight for the king and then leaves his wonderful present woman and they they're separated and then he comes back after he kills a dragon and helps the king of Hungary these images are postcards but they're taken from a restaurant that I desperately want to go to and Leslie Morris has not given me the address or time to get there but they're in there actually murals in this restaurant and then they were made into postcards a set of about twelve and so I wanted to show you because again the artwork is really remarkable and the story is is well known by most Hungarians in the world so he's about to leave says goodbye there's a giant he's got to fight and what then he wins and they become good friends so if the time helps him in this battle to defeat the enemy kills the dragon and home happily now I'm going to wind up please read this so I'm going to wind up by just showing you for me what is fel also fascinating in my storytelling in the postcard collection is that I began I have something like three to four hundred images from different countries throughout the world of storytelling scenes because for me storytelling is the essence story is the essence to a certain extent of our humanity in order to really live together we have to be able to communicate and without stories were lost and so for me these images are really interesting and fascinating it doesn't stress fairy tales necessarily just the fact that there are different ways we tell stories all the time all of us in this room are storytellers we just don't know to what extent we are having storytellers or must be storytellers so these are the final card and I'm only showing you about ten I've got like I said I've got close to 300 that's in France it was typical in the 19th century up through the early part to have what they called and also Italy they they a were evening gathering gathering around gender Alan the fire and they would after eating they would tell all tell stories I love this in Naples look at the Grand while she's trying to frighten the kids a sitting over there they always lived in one room the the peasants did not have more than one room this is from Russia same thing Germany France sweetie good all of America it's an interesting card that came out in the during World War one and that's me and my wife thank you very much I'm supposed to Katie told me that I'm supposed to invite you to not eat yet but to if you have any questions I'd be glad to answer a few questions I know people here who have microphones so all you have to do is raise your hand and okay okay they come they want to tape this I think it's a little technical but dumb the color postcards how did they do the color printing back then the photographs are all like sepia monotone yes is this like for color lithographic separation yes yeah I'm not too sure your and your you're actually ants asking a question that I'm almost incapable okay hi at the end you mentioned like Ernst Bloch and sort of the liberation allure hopeful side of the fairy tale but you also previously mentioned the rise of the fairy tale postcard and like fascist Italy Germany Spain so I'm curious where you see that you know these are used in a sort of nationalistic way versus in a you know anti nationalistic way where do you see that conflict maybe I'm not sure could you repeat that question I'm having trouble here so there's a bit of the you mentioned sort of block and the sort of hopeful side of the postcards and the use of fairy tales but they also previously mentioned the rise of these images and fascist Germany Italy Spain so I'm curious what side of the use of these postcards you would say is more or if there's a conflict sort of in the use of these postcards as something conservative nationalistic fascistic versus something that is against those or transcending nationalism yeah there there there are a lot of patriotic postcards pictorial postcards that have nothing to do with fairy tales they every country you know during a particular period of time will produce like patriotic postcards in America for instance a lot of July 4th postcards and then there might be military and so on and so forth there's the interesting thing about the folk and fairy tales is that they reflect the fact that though they might be attached to a particular country or culture they are not nationalistic they really have a great deal to do just simply with the dreams and wishes of you know the protagonists in in a particular tale and also I think they respond to something universalistic I don't believe in a collective unconscious so that stupid concept that young stupid young developed but what I really think is that we respond to these cards because they really cut across the experiences people have they're not we have more in common than we realize and I think that the postcards bring that out and have the fairy tales and folk tales bring that out yes um in the beginning you were talking about how the postcards kind of evolved from I think you called them chat books and broad sheets and maybe some other stuff and I wasn't sure what those things were so I was my name it you had any like slides yeah that Chapel the chapel you know you know the English don't know how to use their own language chap means cheap okay so these were cheap books that were produced in the nineteenth century and the broadsides are sort of like comic strips they proceeded become comics again in the nineteenth century and there is in AP Nam in France was a small city still exists and they still produce postcards or all types of paper things that deal with stories legends fairy tales and so on so that's and you know the fairy tales go back hundreds of years so but what happens in the nineteenth century with the with the development of Technology now people are writing the tales now the printing picturing and so on that answer the question that question over here wait we'll start back there and then over here okay yes I really like the idea of bombarding a political leader with letter-writing campaign or a postcard writing campaign I do that whenever I have the chance so knowing that the original intent of fairytales was to offer a lesson or a message or a warning can you think of a fairy tale or two that we might want to put on a postcard and send to political leaders to get a message yes thank you very much for that question if you saw the tyrant okay in the six cards that I produced about the humpbacked horse remember the big cauldron and and the Tsar in there that's what I would send to mr. Trump and I would hope that he would jump in and remain there for the rest of his life yes okay I looked at the postcards there in the gallery and I really you know and I'm really fascinated that these people did the postcards you know with the pictures on there and then I'm also surprised that you get a penny postcard and it must have cost a lot more to produce than a penny you know when they when they make the postcard so must cost a lot more money than just a penny or five cents or whatever they got to be yeah well you know nowadays it's it's fairly inexpensive to produce postcards than it was say at the beginning of the say 20th century when postcards were a penny and now if you buy a postcard they generally costs three to five dollars so capitalism is just really working well okay well thank you very much for coming I really appreciate thank you everyone for joining us tonight please join us for a reception in the room over here there are books and postcards available for sale in the WAM shop and Jack will be at a table and happy to have a conversation and sign those for you thank you [Applause]

Channel: Weisman Art Museum

Views: 5,773

Rating: 4.8305087 out of 5

Keywords: fairy tales, disney, postcards

Id: khX9pmvPkxU

Length: 69min 31sec (4171 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 02 2019