Red Hood, Blue Beard: Colour in Fairy Tales

Description

The first in-depth examination of the meaning of colour in fairy tales. Text in English and German. Colours have fascinated us since time immemorial, and their profound symbolic and cultural-historical meanings are reflected in varying narrative forms. In folk and literary fairy tales especially, colours are not simply attributes or superficial occurrences, rather they open up further levels of interpretation. Why, of all things, is the head gear of a young unimposing girl red? Why is the beard of a knight who murders women blue? The current book explores these and other fascinating questions - colour by colour. Sabine Schimma illustrates in short essays, complemented by three interviews with experts conducted by Peter Stohler, that it is still worthwhile engaging with the cultural history of colour in these stories.

Sabine Schimma (b. 1969) studied cultural sciences, specialising in media, and obtained her PhD at the Bauhaus-Universitat in Weimar on aesthetics and experiment in Goethe's colour studies. She has curated several projects for the Klassik Stiftung Weimar. She has been working at GRIMM World Kassel since 2017. Peter Stohler (b. 1967) studied art history, film studies and arts management. From 2005 he was head curator of the Haus fur Kunst Uri in Altdorf, Switzerland, from 2006 director of the Centre pour l'Image Contemporaine in Geneva, Switzerland, from 2007 commissary for cultural projects in the City of Basel's Department of Culture and from 2013 director at the Kunst(Zeug)Haus Rapperswil, Switzerland. Stohler has been director of GRIMM World Kassel, Germany, since 2018.