Ursula Kirchner: Fairy Tale Paper Cuts

Ursula Kirchner -- like Lotte Reiniger Silhouette Films -- did amazing work in black and white detailed paper cut illustrations. These beauties are from Märchen, edited by Karlhans Frank, published by the Goethe-Institute in 1985. I love this style -- it's so dramatic, so filled with energy. I also think the way it's constructed from a single sheet of paper gives the visual equivalent of an organic and interconnected experience-- just like a story -- rather than a single illustration that only reveals one moment in the tale. In the large piece below one can follow the narrative in the panels while all the beautiful details, such as the borders of birds and leaves, knitted it together into a whole. Below is a Hansel and Gretel variant -- and I love the panel with the witch -- especially as the beauty of the paper cuts almost belies the horror of the story (children in cages in the backyard) and in the next panel, note how Gretel pushes the witch into the oven and she reappears as a hovering cloud.Great stuff.

(via 50Watts)